Google would seemingly be the big winner in the recent announcement that search and maps will bring $3.3 billion in revenue in 2011. Don’t count Apple out, though: the type of video and audio ads iAd excels in is slated to be the fastest-growing area for mobile advertising.
“As the adoption of smartphones and media tablets extends to more consumers, the audience for mobile advertising will increase and become easier to segment and target,” Gartner research vice president Andrew Frank said. Previously, advertisers targeted other media because the audience could be better classified, where the mobile Internet was a homogenous blob of consumers.
Although mobile advertising, either iAds or in-app, was a mere $1.6 billion market in 2010, that figure should mushroom to $20.6 billion by 2015, according to the research firm. Mobile ad budgets are expected to comprise 4 percent of total advertising spending by 2015, up from just a blip of 0.5 percent last year.
Mobile ads in North America should grow to 28 percent of the global market by 2015, with revenue jumping to $701 million this year and $5.7 billion in four years. Western Europe will spend $569 million on mobile advertising in 2011 and $5.1 billion by 2015, Gartner said.
Asia/Pacific and Japan remain leaders in mobile advertising, comprising 49.2 percent and 33.6 percent of the world market.
