Mobile Ad Market To Reach $11 Billion By 2011

Advertising spend on mobile phones is expected to increase massively over the next five years, creating a global market worth more than $11.3 billion annually, according to a new report from Informa Telecoms and Media.

Informa forecasts that the mobile advertising market will be worth $871 million this year, a figure it expects to reach $1.5 billion by the end of 2007. By 2011 the market is forecast to be worth $11.3 billion.

Mobile search advertising and display advertisements on mobile web pages will account for about $3.1 billion by 2011. Advertising over mobile TV will be the most lucrative sector within the market, says Informa, worth almost $4.4 billion by 2011.

Informa says that there will be over 2.1 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by the end of 2006, rising to nearly 4 billion in 2011.

Nicky Walton, principal author of the report and senior research analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media, said: “In the last 18 months there have been a number of developments that are encouraging interest in the medium. There are now more users with advanced multimedia handsets and the number of subscribers who connect to mobile broadband via 3G and HSDPA is growing significantly.

“Consumer interest in multimedia mobile content is also growing and areas like mobile TV, and ‘off-portal’ search are becoming more popular.”

Virgin Mobile today launches its mobile TV service, provided by BT’s wholesale mobile broadcast entertainment service, BT Movio (see BT Announces Partners For Mobile TV Service), whilst on Monday ITV launched its own mobile phone simulcast service in a deal with mobile network 3 (see ITV Launches Live Broadcasts On 3 Network).

However, ads will not be shown on either service for the time being, as broadcasters are currently unsure as to whether they have to clear rights separately to run TV ads over mobile phones.

Informa: www.informatm.com