Mobile Advertising Industry to Reach $24 Billion by 2015

Any doubts that mobile advertising is big business should be crushed by the most recent research from Informa Telecoms & Media which found that mobile ad revenue will reach $3.5 billion worldwide this year.

What's more, by 2015, revenue will have increased eight-fold to around $24 billion, thanks in part to efforts from Apple and Google, namely, says Informa.

This current report is referring to the entire mobile ad industry, not just in-app advertising, it appears. In-app ads, however, are expected to reach $8 by 2015, according to Borrell Associates.

Revenues Climb

In Informa's latest report, the firm says that Apple's iAd platform launch has prompted rivals, including Google, to speed up their own strategies. Informa senior analyst Shailendra Pandey notes that Google's AdMob acquisition "is on track to generate $1 billion in revenues from mobile in 2010, a significant portion of which will be mobile advertising revenues." Also, Google has reported a 500% increase in mobile search queries between 2008 and 2010, the report's author notes.

Informa is forecasting that, over the next 12-18 months, the mobile advertising market will begin a sustained period of consolidation where bigger players will hunt for smaller companies that can be easily integrated into their platforms.

Pandey also says that the mobile advertising industry is no longer in its "experimental" phase, but is rather an active market seeing large investments in mobile campaigns on a regular basis. "The investments from big players such as Google and Apple validates the market opportunity,"  Pandey added. This has resulted in "brands and agencies more actively considering mobile for their campaigns," he concluded.

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