Mobile Advertising to Rise 36%
According to a recent report released by Magna, a unit of Interpublic Group, mobile advertising will increase at a brisk, but slower-than-originally-forecast pace this year and will almost double by 2011.
Magna expects mobile advertising in the U.S. to reach $229 million this year, a 36 percent increase from the $169 million spent in 2008. The company’s original forecast in July 2008 was $298 million.
Mobile ad spending will reach $331 million in 2010, and will rise even further to $409 million by 2011, according to Magna.
“Although these figures represent downward revisions from our forecast in the middle of last year (prior to the subsequent escalation of the ongoing recession), we expect a re-acceleration in 2010 as the emerging mobile applications market organizes to support the sustained growth of ad-supported apps,” said Brian Wieser, director of forecasting at Magna.
This growth is driven, obviously, by the popularity of the iPhone and other smartphones, including the recently surging BlackBerry phones, in addition to the rising penetration of cell phone subscriptions and mobile Web access.
Mobile applications, made popular by Apple’s iPhone and recently targeted by Blackberry’s Application World, also added to the appeal of the mobile medium’s advertising potential.
According to CTIA, a nonprofit association representing various sectors of wireless communications, there were more than 270 million mobile subscriptions at the end of 2008.
There were 224 million mobile users in 2008, according to Nielsen.
Wieser said that the mobile medium is a range of a “highly fragmented group of divergent advertising models” centered around portable media, and that “a wide variety of trends converge to produce this total.”
He added that aggregating ad networks are quickly working to organize this assortment of advertising opportunities in the mobile realm and will see big growth in the coming years.
The report asserted that “Mobile ad networks represent by far the largest sub-sector within mobile advertising, and the greatest growth in absolute terms over the next several years.”
Sources:</strong
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=105251
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/04/AR2009050401626.html
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/05/04/mobile-advertising-to-increase-36-in-09
