Consolidation will be a key trend during 2014, and consolidation of mobile services will be part of that pie.

So, in that regard, the investment by Japanese mobile ad company Adways into Korean mobile tracking company 5Rocks is right on song.

The cash value of the investment hasn't been revealed, but both companies are enthusiastic about the opportunity it presents.

One plus one is three

"Adways has gained much experience and knowledge in the past 13 years by heading many online mobile advertisements," said Haruhisa Okamura.

"We plan to hold nothing back in creating a new product along with 5Rocks in order to bring effective marketing plans to mobile application developers."

Alongside Adways' expertise in gathering and analysing advertisement data, 5Rocks' ability to generate and analyse real-time user data should throw up plenty of synergies.

"Ever since data-driven marketing has become important in the industry, the need for a precise analysis of the user trend has increased tremendously," commented its CEO Chang-su Lee.

"The combined skills of 5Rocks and Adways will contribute greatly to this need."