How to land an OEM preload deal as a mid-size studio

Yes, a mid-size studio can land an OEM preload deal. The reason most don’t isn’t that the door is shut, it’s that they aim at the wrong door, pitch the wrong thing, and ask for terms no business development manager can approve. An OEM preload is a commercial arrangement like any other: the manufacturer has shelf space on tens of millions of devices, you have a game that can earn money or move handsets, and somewhere between those two facts there’s a deal that makes sense for both sides.

This is the tactical companion to our broader case for the channel. If you’re still deciding whether OEM distribution is worth your time, start with why OEM partnerships are a quietly great channel for indies. This piece assumes you’ve already decided yes and want to know how — who to email, what to put in the deck, what the OEM is actually optimising for, and which deal structures close versus which ones get politely ignored.

What “preload” actually means (and what it doesn’t)

“Preload deal” gets used loosely to mean three quite different things, and conflating them is the fastest way to sound like you don’t know the channel.

A true preinstall. Your game ships on the device out of the box, in the app drawer or a games folder, before the user has opened a single store. This is the most valuable and the hardest to get. It consumes finite ROM budget, so the OEM rations it carefully and usually wants money, exclusivity, or a strategic reason.

Store featuring and placement. Your game isn’t preinstalled, but it gets editorial placement, a banner, or a category spotlight inside the OEM’s own storefront — Samsung Galaxy Store, Xiaomi GetApps, OPPO App Market, Vivo’s V-Appstore, Huawei AppGallery. Much easier to secure, often free or revenue-share-funded, and frequently the realistic first step toward a preload.

Soft preload / dynamic preload. The game isn’t baked into the ROM but is pushed during device setup or first boot via the OEM’s recommendation engine. The user sees it as preinstalled; the OEM keeps the flexibility to swap titles per region or campaign. This hybrid is where a lot of 2026 mid-tier deals actually live, because it gives the OEM preload-like visibility without burning permanent storage.

Knowing which of these you’re asking for — and asking for the cheapest one that meets your goal — signals competence immediately. For the storefront mechanics behind featuring, our OEM app stores comparison breaks down how each manufacturer’s store treats discovery, ads and payments.

Who you’re actually trying to reach

The single biggest reason studios “can’t get a response from the OEM” is that they’re emailing the wrong function. OEMs are large, siloed organisations, and the person who owns preload decisions is rarely the one whose email you can guess.

In practice there are three doors:

• Content / games BD team. This is your primary target — the people whose job is to fill the storefront and preload slots with titles that perform. They sit inside the software or services division, not the hardware side. Samsung’s Galaxy Store partner programme, Xiaomi’s global developer relations, and Huawei’s AppGallery BD all have versions of this team.
• Regional carrier and channel managers. Many preload slots are negotiated per country, often bundled with carrier deals. A Galaxy preload in Brazil and one in Indonesia can be entirely separate conversations with separate budgets. If your strength is a specific region, find the regional manager, not the global one.
• Aggregators. You usually don’t have to reach every OEM individually. Distribution aggregators — Transsion’s channels across Africa, or SDK-based aggregators like KYLN that fan one integration out across multiple OEM storefronts — exist precisely so a mid-size studio can sign once and reach many. For most studios this is the pragmatic entry point, and it’s a large part of what we do at Impulse Media Hub: we sit between studios and the OEM/carrier channels so you negotiate one relationship instead of a dozen.

A warm introduction through an aggregator or an existing partner beats a cold form submission by a wide margin. The channel runs on relationships, and BD managers are measured on the performance of the partners they bring in — so they’re cautious about unknowns.

What the OEM actually wants

Walk into the conversation understanding the OEM’s incentives and you’ll pitch the right things. A preload or featuring slot is real estate the manufacturer monetises or uses strategically, and they’re weighing your title against everyone else competing for it.

They care, roughly in this order, about:

1. Monetisation per device. If they take a revenue share, a high-ARPU title that converts on their audience is worth more than a chart-topper with weak monetisation. Bring your ARPDAU, payer rate and retention by region — especially for markets where they’re strong.
2. Retention and engagement. Preinstalls that get uninstalled in week one hurt their store metrics and their device experience. D7 and D30 retention is a gating number.
3. Local fit. A game that’s localised, supports local payment rails (including carrier billing in markets where cards are scarce), and feels native to the region is dramatically more attractive than a US-first title with a token translation.
4. Operational reliability. Can you ship builds to their certification process on time, support their SDK, and not generate a support headache? Mid-size studios win here against bigger ones that treat the OEM as an afterthought.

Notice what’s not top of the list: your brand prestige, your award nominations, your console heritage. Those help open the door but they don’t close the deal. Numbers and fit do.

The deal structures that get signed

There’s no single “preload contract.” A handful of structures recur, and a mid-size studio should know which to propose.

• Revenue share. The default for storefront distribution and many soft preloads. OEM stores commonly run well below the 30% duopoly rate — frequently in the 12–20% band, sometimes lower for strategic partners. Clean, low-risk, and the easiest to get approved because nobody fronts cash.
• CPI / bounty preload. The OEM (or carrier) is paid a fixed bounty per install or per qualified active user. This is how a lot of hard preloads are funded. It works when your LTV comfortably exceeds the bounty plus your other costs — so you need your unit economics tight before you propose it.
• Net-revenue / managed deals. The OEM absorbs placement and sometimes marketing in exchange for a larger share of net monetisation. Attractive because it shifts UA risk off your balance sheet, but you give up margin and some control over how the title is promoted.
• Fixed-fee placement. A flat payment for a defined preload campaign over a set period and device volume. Predictable for budgeting, but you carry all the performance risk, so reserve it for titles you’re confident will convert.
• Strategic / exclusivity deals. Time-limited exclusivity, co-marketing tied to a device launch, or a first-look window. These unlock the best terms but require something the OEM genuinely wants — usually a strong IP or a title that makes their device look good.

The mistake to avoid is leading with the structure that’s best for you. Lead with the one that’s easiest for the BD manager to approve — usually revenue share or a modest soft preload — prove the title performs on their audience, and renegotiate upward from a position of data. We unpack how this fits a wider portfolio in our guide to distribution beyond paid UA.

The integration and certification lift

Underestimating the technical work is the second-most-common way deals stall after signing. Budget for it up front.

Most OEM channels require some combination of: integrating their billing SDK (so in-app purchases route through their payment system, not Google Play Billing), passing a store certification process that checks for crashes, content compliance and policy adherence, and producing a build variant per channel. If you’re going through an aggregator SDK, much of this collapses into a single integration — that’s the point of using one.

Realistic timelines for a mid-size studio with one engineer on it: two to six weeks for SDK integration and a first certified build, then anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of months for the commercial side to close in parallel. The technical work and the BD conversation should run concurrently — having a certified, channel-ready build is itself a strong negotiating signal, because it tells the OEM you can actually ship.

How a mid-size studio gets the first deal

Compressed into a sequence you can run this quarter:

1. Pick one OEM and one region where your game already has signal. Don’t pitch a global preload. Pitch a Galaxy Store featuring in the one market where your retention is best.
2. Lead through an aggregator or warm intro, not a cold form.
3. Bring the numbers the OEM cares about — ARPDAU, payer rate, D7/D30 retention, segmented by their strong regions.
4. Ask for the cheapest structure that meets your goal — usually rev-share storefront featuring or a soft preload — to get a yes on the board.
5. Ship a certified build fast to prove reliability.
6. Use the performance data to expand — more regions, harder preload slots, better terms.

The studios that win this channel aren’t the biggest. They’re the ones who treat it like the commercial relationship it is: targeted, data-led, and easy to say yes to. If Japan is on your roadmap, the MSCA’s distribution opening changes the channel picture there — alternative billing and third-party stores are now live, which adds new angles to an OEM or carrier pitch. If you’d rather not build a dozen of those relationships from scratch, talk to us — connecting mid-size studios to OEM and carrier channels is exactly the gap we close.

FAQ

Do I need a huge install base to get an OEM preload? No. You need evidence that your title performs on the OEM’s audience in a specific region — strong retention and monetisation matter more than raw scale. A focused, well-converting title in one market beats a large but flat one.

Is a preload deal free, or do I pay for it? Both exist. Storefront featuring and soft preloads are often revenue-share-funded with no upfront cost. Hard preinstalls usually involve a bounty (CPI) or fixed fee because they consume finite device storage the OEM has to justify.

Should I approach OEMs directly or through an aggregator? For most mid-size studios, an aggregator is the pragmatic first move: one integration and one negotiation reach multiple storefronts, instead of building separate BD relationships with each manufacturer. Go direct once you have leverage and a region-specific reason.

How long does it take to go live? Plan for two to six weeks of SDK integration and certification, with the commercial negotiation running in parallel. A typical first deal goes live within one to three months of serious engagement.