New research reveals mobile ad spend beat expectations last year, amounting to a record £37.6 million
New research reveals mobile ad spend beat expectations last year, amounting to a record £37.6 million
Despite a contraction in the advertising sector in 2009, total spend on mobile phone advertising in 2009 rocketed by 32% year on year to a new high of £37.6m, according to second, annual Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) study.
While some brands and media owners cut back their investment in mobile advertising, the study found that the medium grew at a faster rate than predicted due to its exceptional targeting, immediacy and return on investment.
Every quarter in 2009 showed consistent, strong growth with the fourth quarter (Q4) delivering a record display advertising spend of £5.5 million – an increase of 28% period-on-period.
Mobile advertising formats popular
Both paid-for search and display formats performed above expectations.
Mobile search was the fastest growing format – up 41% to a new high of £20.2 million and a market share of 54% (compared to 50% in 2008).
Mobile display, which includes banners, text links, tenancies pre- and post-roll and in-game advertising, grew by 24% to £17.4 million and a market share of 46% (50% in 2008).
Driving mobile display was expenditure on banners and text links, which were up 26% year on year to £14.6 million (£11.7m in 2008), to a new market share of 39% (41% in 2008).
Meanwhile, tenancies were up 17% year on year to £1.4m (£1.2m in 2008) and a market share of 3.8% (4.3% in 2008). And other formats, including display advertising within SMS/MMS, were up 26% year on year, to £1.2 million (£1m in 2008) and a market share of 3.2% (3.4% in 2008).
Industry categories reveal split
For the first time the 2009 report reveals the top display ad categories. The top five were: entertainment & media (61.5%), telecoms (14.7%), finance (8.1%), consumer goods (3.2%), and government, social and political (2.7%).
Jon Mew, head of mobile at digital marketing trade body the Internet Advertising Bureau, said: “While market conditions saw many advertisers reduce their investment and testing on mobile, these findings paint a positive picture of a compelling new advertising medium. Mobile is an effective, highly targeted and complementary advertising channel. Signs are that 2010 will be important year as confidence and budgets increase.”
Eva Berg-Winters of PricewaterhouseCoopers, added: "A successful year for mobile has been underpinned by mixed performances. There were two distinct approaches from advertisers and publishers. They either cut spend or continued to invest and develop their use of mobile - with a view to come out on top following the downturn.
Investing now for burgeoning growth
"Recent investment in mobile has significantly outweighed the budgets cuts. This signals the belief that it is set to become an important medium."
The report also restated key drivers and insights to last mobile sector growth: According to Comscore/GSMA MMM mobile internet usage increased by 21% in 2009 with 18.9 million handsets now accessing the mobile internet every month. And 23% of time spent accessing internet is on a mobile device, where the average time spent surfing on a mobile is now 32 minutes a day (UKOM/Nielsen).
Smartphone usage is up 70% and growing faster in the UK than Europe and unlimited data plans (including unlimited internet access) was up 113% in 2009, also according to Comscore/GSMA MMM. This has led Yahoo! APPetite to state that 77% of mobile internet sessions now exceeding five minutes and that time spent on social networks now greater on mobiles than a PC – 41 minutes a day is spent on Facebook via mobiles, compared to 31 minutes a day via PC.
