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.

It is a component of the firm’s Mobile Marketing Strategies Service, which also includes Research Reports, ABI Insights, and analyst inquiry support.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 28 research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.