OEM Advertising: The Guide for App and Game Developers in 2026

Most app marketers split their budget between Google and Meta and call it a channel mix. OEM advertising is the third pillar: buying installs directly from smartphone manufacturers — Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Honor, Huawei, Transsion — across roughly 86% of global Android shipments and around 1.85 billion daily active users, typically at about 30% lower cost per action.

Here's how it works, where it wins, and where it doesn't.

Why the Channel Exists

Android is not one market. Outside the US, most Android phones ship with the manufacturer's own app store, launcher and content feed preinstalled alongside Google Play — and the manufacturer sells advertising inside all of them.

The reach is not marginal:

• 86% of global Android shipments are covered by participating OEMs
• 65% of all mobile devices in use worldwide
• approximately 1.85 billion daily active users

Source: Airbridge, June 2026.

Two OEM stores alone illustrate the scale: Huawei's AppGallery reports over 580 million monthly active users globally, and Xiaomi's GetApps around 260 million MAU across 100+ markets.

Who Leads Where

OEM advertising is a regional game. Buying it as a single global channel is the most common way to waste the budget.

Source: Airbridge, June 2026.

Read that column on the right as a media plan. A campaign in Nigeria and a campaign in Poland share the label "OEM" and almost nothing else.

The Four Formats

1. Alternative App Stores

Paid placements inside Samsung Galaxy Store, Xiaomi GetApps, Huawei AppGallery and their equivalents. Closest to Apple Search Ads or Google Play in mechanics — a user is already browsing for apps, so intent is high and volume is capped by store traffic.

2. On-Device Display

Lock screens, app drawers, notification feeds, the "minus-one" screen left of the home screen. Native inventory the manufacturer owns outright. Reach is enormous, intent is low, and creative quality decides everything.

3. Dynamic Preloads

Your app installs at first device boot, via Google Play Auto Install. Not a static factory image — the app is selected dynamically, so targeting and measurement still work.

This is the format with no equivalent anywhere else. It's also the one that produces the retention advantage below, because the app arrives before the user has formed any habits about which apps live on their phone.

4. Branding Placements

Splash screens and full-takeover formats. An awareness buy, priced and measured as one. Useful around a launch; not a performance channel.

What It Does Better

Cost. OEM channels typically deliver around 30% lower cost per action than traditional app store marketing. That gap comes from competition, not quality — most budget still concentrates on Google and Meta, so the auction is thinner.

Retention. Preloaded installs show roughly 50% lower uninstall rates than traditional installs. A user who found your app already on their new phone treats it as part of the device rather than as something they downloaded and can delete.

Buying models. CPI, oCPC and ROAS bidding are all available, so this is not a legacy fixed-fee channel — it plugs into the same optimisation discipline as the rest of your performance marketing.

Where It Fails

An honest channel guide has to include this part.

iOS-first titles get nothing. The entire channel is Android. If your revenue concentrates on iOS, this is not your growth lever.

Tier 1 premium audiences are not the strength. OEM reach is highest where ARPU is lowest. If your economics only work on high-spending users in the US, UK and Japan, the volume you'll find here may not pay back.

Measurement takes real work. Preloads in particular blur the line between paid and organic — the install happens before the user has done anything. Without incrementality testing you will either over-credit or dismiss the channel entirely, and both mistakes are expensive.

It's not self-serve. Most OEM inventory is bought through partners or direct relationships, not a dashboard you open on a Tuesday. Plan for lead time.

How to Actually Run It

Start with one region, not the channel. Pick the market where your game already has traction and OEM reach is high — Southeast Asia, India, CIS, Africa. Run there before you generalise.

Match the format to the objective. Alternative app stores for intent and efficient CPI. Preloads for volume and retention. On-device display for scale once creative is proven. Branding only around a launch moment.

Localise the creative properly. These are emerging-market audiences on mid-tier hardware. Creative built for a Tier 1 iOS user tends to underperform badly here — this is a case for production built per market rather than one asset translated.

Instrument for incrementality from day one. Geo holdouts, not last-click. This is the single decision that determines whether the channel looks like a discovery or a disappointment, and it's the same standard we apply across our case studies.

Budget for a learning period. Bid models need volume. A two-week test with a token budget will tell you nothing except that two weeks wasn't enough.

The Short Version

OEM advertising is the largest UA channel most studios have never bought. It reaches nearly nine in ten Android devices shipped, costs around 30% less per action, and retains preloaded users markedly better. It is also regional, Android-only, hard to measure casually and unavailable through a self-serve dashboard.

Which is precisely why it's still cheap. Channels stay underpriced exactly as long as they stay inconvenient.