Global mobile advertising revenue is forecast to touch $11.4 billion in 2013, up from $9.6 billion in 2012, as the use of smartphones and tablets spreads like wildfire.

Mobile advertising is expected to rake in $24.5 billion in 2016 with opportunities being created for application developers and advertising networks. Mobile platform providers, specialty agencies and even communications service providers in certain regions stand to benefit, according to a study by research firm Gartner.

“The mobile advertising market took off even faster than we expected due to an increased uptake in smartphones and tablets, as well as the merger of consumer behaviour on computers and mobile devices,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. “Growth in mobile advertising comes in part at the expense of print formats, especially local newspapers, which currently face much lower ad yields as a result of mobile publishing initiatives,” Baghdassarian added.

“Smartphones and media tablets extend the addressable market for mobile advertising in more and more geographies as an increasing population of users spend an increasing share of its time with these devices,” said Andrew Frank, Research Vice-President at Gartner.

A large adoption of handsets for digital content consumption in Japan and South Korea has given the Asia-Pacific region an early lead in mobile advertising. Looking forward, the high-growth economies of China and India are expected to contribute increasingly to mobile advertising growth due to their expanding middle classes.

However, North America and Western Europe will close the gap on Asia-Pacific. In the rest of the world — Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and Africa — mobile advertising growth will be aligned with technology adoption and the stabilisation of emerging economies, but will mostly be driven by large markets such as Russia, Brazil and Mexico.

rajesh.kurup@thehindu.co.in

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