As advertisers look beyond saturated markets for new sources of growth, Huawei is positioning its Petal Ads mobile advertising ecosystem as a route into China’s large digital audience. At DMEXCO 2023, the company showcased advertising solutions focused on international customer acquisition, first-party data and access to high-value mobile users.
Huawei used DMEXCO 2023 to put a spotlight on Petal Ads, its mobile advertising platform, with a message aimed squarely at brands looking to expand beyond their domestic markets.
The company hosted a masterclass, operated an exhibition booth and participated in a Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) panel focused on reaching high-value audiences. The event itself brought together 800 international speakers, 40,000 international trade visitors and 650 exhibiting companies, making it a significant meeting point for the European advertising and digital marketing industry.
For Huawei, however, the central proposition was narrower: help advertisers connect with Chinese consumers while using mobile advertising infrastructure built around Huawei’s ecosystem.
Jaime Gonzalo, VP of Huawei Mobile Services Europe, said the company’s priorities at the event were helping brands develop digital campaigns and giving them tools to reach high-value international audiences, particularly in China.
That positioning puts Petal Ads into an increasingly competitive part of the AdTech market. Platforms from Google, Meta, Amazon and other global advertising companies already provide extensive audience targeting and international media-buying capabilities. Huawei’s differentiation is its access to a proprietary mobile ecosystem and its focus on audiences within markets where the company’s hardware and services have significant reach.
Petal Ads’ China proposition
During the Petal Ads masterclass, Gonzalo emphasized the importance of targeting high-quality users rather than simply maximizing audience scale.
Huawei presented China as a particularly attractive expansion market for international brands, pointing to the company’s understanding of local consumer behavior and its access to Huawei users.
According to figures cited by Huawei at the time, the company had more than 500 million monthly active users in China and a 47.4% share of the country’s foldable smartphone market. Huawei also referenced its first-place position in China’s YouGov Global Best Brand Ranking 2022.
Those figures are important to Huawei’s advertising pitch because Petal Ads is not simply being positioned as another demand-side platform with access to third-party inventory. Its value proposition is closely connected to Huawei’s own hardware, operating systems, apps and services.
That ecosystem can give advertisers access to signals generated within a large mobile environment, although the value of such signals ultimately depends on targeting capabilities, privacy safeguards, measurement quality and how effectively advertisers can translate audience data into commercial outcomes.
For European brands, Huawei also highlighted the operational support surrounding international campaigns. The company said its European teams can assist advertisers with localization, including language and visual adaptation, as well as campaign setup.
That matters for brands entering China because international expansion is rarely a simple media-buying exercise. Creative localization, consumer behavior, regulatory requirements, payment infrastructure and platform-specific user habits can all affect campaign performance.
First-party data becomes a central issue
The debate around high-value audience targeting at DMEXCO also reflected a broader change in digital advertising.
At the MMA panel, industry participants discussed the importance of first-party data for granular audience segmentation. That has become increasingly significant as the advertising industry moves away from reliance on third-party identifiers and toward consent-based data strategies.
For advertisers, first-party data can include information gathered directly through customer relationships, such as website interactions, app activity, purchases and account information. When responsibly integrated with media platforms, those signals can help marketers create more relevant audience segments while maintaining greater control over their data assets.
Petal Ads’ ecosystem approach fits into that wider shift, although advertisers evaluating the platform still need to understand exactly which audience signals are available, how they are collected and how campaign measurement is handled.
This is where Huawei’s proposition differs from a conventional cross-platform advertising strategy.
Instead of competing purely on inventory scale, Petal Ads can use the broader Huawei ecosystem as part of its audience and distribution proposition. That may be particularly relevant for brands whose international expansion strategy includes China or other markets where Huawei has substantial mobile reach.
The competitive landscape is getting more fragmented
The mobile advertising market has become increasingly fragmented across operating systems, app ecosystems and media platforms.
Google’s Android ecosystem gives advertisers access to a vast global mobile audience, while Apple’s advertising business is built around the company’s own ecosystem and privacy framework. Amazon combines advertising with commerce data, and Meta operates one of the world’s largest social advertising environments.
Huawei’s Petal Ads represents another model: an advertising platform closely connected to a hardware and services ecosystem.
That model can provide advantages in audience access and first-party signals, but it also creates limitations. Advertisers need to evaluate reach outside Huawei’s ecosystem, campaign portability, measurement capabilities and the degree to which media investments can be integrated into broader omnichannel strategies.
For enterprise marketing teams, the decision is therefore less about whether Petal Ads can replace established global advertising platforms and more about where it fits within an international media mix.
A potential gateway for brands entering China
Huawei’s presence at DMEXCO highlighted a broader trend in AdTech: advertisers are increasingly looking for specialized platforms that can provide access to specific audiences, markets or ecosystems.
For brands targeting China, that specialization can be valuable. A platform with strong local audience knowledge and direct mobile reach may offer capabilities that are difficult to replicate through a generalized global buying strategy.
The challenge will be demonstrating measurable incremental value.
Enterprise advertisers increasingly expect advertising platforms to provide granular attribution, transparent reporting, audience quality metrics and optimization tools. Access to a large user base is only the starting point.
Petal Ads’ longer-term opportunity will depend on how effectively it converts Huawei’s mobile ecosystem into measurable outcomes for advertisers—and how easily those results can be incorporated into sophisticated global media strategies.
DMEXCO 2023 provided Huawei with a stage to make that case. Its message was clear: as brands search for new international growth opportunities, mobile ecosystems can become more than distribution channels. They can also function as advertising infrastructure, audience intelligence layers and potential gateways into difficult-to-reach markets.
Market Landscape
Petal Ads operates within a mobile advertising market increasingly shaped by first-party data, privacy changes, proprietary ecosystems and international audience targeting.
The traditional model of buying broad third-party audiences is being challenged by identifier restrictions and growing consumer expectations around data privacy. As a result, major technology companies are increasingly leveraging their own ecosystems to build advertising products.
Google combines advertising with Android and its broader consumer services ecosystem. Apple uses its first-party environment to support advertising while emphasizing privacy. Amazon has built advertising around commerce and purchase-intent data. Huawei’s approach is closer to the ecosystem model, using its devices, apps and services as the foundation for Petal Ads.
For enterprise advertisers, this creates a more fragmented buying landscape. Rather than relying on one universal platform, global campaigns increasingly require a portfolio of media partners selected according to audience, geography, inventory and measurement requirements.
Top Insights
- Huawei used DMEXCO 2023 to position Petal Ads as a mobile advertising platform for brands seeking high-value international audiences and China market expansion.
- Petal Ads leverages Huawei’s mobile ecosystem, giving advertisers access to proprietary audiences alongside campaign support for localization and international expansion.
- First-party data is becoming increasingly important as advertisers seek granular targeting while adapting to privacy changes and reduced reliance on third-party identifiers.
- Petal Ads competes differently from broad global platforms, emphasizing ecosystem access and China-specific audience knowledge rather than advertising reach alone.
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