The proportion of U.S. mobile phone users who say they saw a mobile ad rose to 38% of subscribers in the first quarter of this year from 33% in Q4 2008, according to new research conducted by market research firm GfK Technology for the Brightkite social network.
The “Mobile Advertising Report Q1 2009” found that iPhone users were much more likely to encounter advertising in the course of their unwired day. Fully 59% of subscribers using the iconic Apple smartphone said they could recall seeing a mobile ad in the first three months of this year.
And while most of the ads encountered by non-iPhone users came in as SMS communications, iPhone-equipped respondents said they saw ads most often in the course of using the mobile Web. About 28.4% of iPhone users recalled mobile Web ads in the quarter, compared to only 10.7% of those on other handset models.
Overall awareness of mobile phone ads has risen in the twelve months, the survey of 1,000 users found, increasing from 6.8% of the user population in Q1 2008 to 10.8% a year later.
Specifically regarding iPhone users, about 50% said they accessed a WAP or mobile Internet site in Q1 ’09, about the same proportion reporting the previous quarter. But half of all iPhone users also reported playing a downloaded game on their phones in the first three months of 2009, up from 42% in Q4 ’08, and making games the fast-growing iPhone application for the quarter.
The study also found that iPhone users are 23% more likely to use text messaging than their non-iPhone counterparts. They are also 170% more prone to using location-based mobile services, since the latest iPhone model incorporates GPS capabilities. (The Brightkite social platform allows location-based mobile services.)
And since social networks such as Facebook have recently added mobile updating to their features, the Mobile Advertising Report found that 10% of phone owners but fully one-third of iPhone users engaged with a social network over their handsets this quarter.
“If the current iPhone is an indicator of future behavior across other handsets, then the current conclusion is that the ‘old’ stalwarts of mobile advertising (WAP and SMS are going to be caught and perhaps surpassed by ads inside of other applications and services,” the report finds.
Demographically, men showed the greatest quarterly increase in mobile ad awareness, jumping to 43% in Q1 ’09 from 33% the quarter before. The report’s authors ascribed the increase to usage growth in mobile Internet, social network, games and radio among the 18-24 age group, whose ad awareness shot to 59% this last quarter from 47% at the end of last year. Ad awareness among women remained steady at about 34%.
