comScore rings up a deal with M:Metrics

At a meeting yesterday, everyone had a smartphone. It's just standard nowadays.

But whose keeping track of the metrics on these devices? Well, one of the top players is M:Metrics. This week the company agreed to sell out to comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) for $44.3 million and 50,000 stock options.

It's a savvy deal. According to the investor conference call, comScore's CEO, Dr. Magid Abraham, said that M:Metrics is a "significant" player in the space and has a three-year lead. Yes, in the topsy-turvy tech world, that's a big deal.

M:Metrics has a variety of products, with more than 180 customers. For example, MobiLens allows for a monthly online surveys of mobile phone usage from more than 40,000 users. Next, MeterDirect is an on-device meter, which is used by 4,000 users of smartphones and is compatible with 280 device models. Finally, there is M:Ad. As the name implies, this tracks mobile ads.

No doubt, mobile is going to be a big growth driver for comScore. Apparently, the revenue contribution could be 10% or more by 2009 as mentioned on the conference call.

Plus, comScore should derive some cost savings (from its well-developed infrastructure) as well as cross-sale opportunities (from its extensive product offerings). Actually, there is little customer overlap between the companies.

Wall Street seems to like the deal. In Thursday's trading, comScore's shares were up 5% to $24.68.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.