US Spending on Mobile Display Ads Will Nearly Quadruple over the Next Five Years

Mobile advertising is a young and relatively small market today. But over the next five years, spending on mobile display ads in the United States, estimated at just under $313 million today, will almost quadruple to exceed $1.2 billion in 2015.

ABI Research practice director Neil Strother says, �A survey conducted by ABI Research in February found that 28% of the mobile subscribers queried accessed the mobile Internet daily. This is a huge increase over the number doing so just 14 months ago, and is a powerful driver for the mobile marketing and advertising market.�

Mobile display ads � essentially similar to online banner ads � are only one method available to aspiring mobile marketers. The others are:

- Text messaging

- Search advertising

- Ads within applications (in-app)

- Video (streaming and on-demand)

While smartphone usage is a primary driver of this new and still fragmented industry (smartphone penetration in the US currently stands at about 20%), mobile marketing�s potential extends to mobile devices of all kinds.

�Marketers have increasingly been shifting budgets into mobile campaigns,� Strother reports. �This became evident during our research interviews with advertising agency executives, technology vendors and mobile ad network operators, who said they have been seeing year-over-year increases of 25% to 30% in campaign spending.�

Big technology firms are now getting involved, as demonstrated by Apple�s acquisition of Quattro Wireless and Google�s takeover of AdMob. But independent ad networks are also serving this market, companies such as Millennial Media, Jumptap, and Greystripe. �Each of these networks is focused on a somewhat different part of the market,� says Strother, �but in principal they�re open to anybody with money who wants to reach a mobile audience.�

A new ABI Research Market Data product, �Mobile Ad Spending,� provides market data and projections for spending on commercial mobile messaging, mobile display advertising, mobile search, mobile in-application advertising and ad-supported mobile video. The forecast database also examines user adoption for these various types of mobile marketing engagements, and includes five-year forecasts for the advertising inventory for each type of method.