US Poised To Spend More On Mobile Advertising Than Japan

By TANZINA VEGA

The United States is poised to become the global leader in spending on mobile marketing this year according to new research, passing Japan, which had been the world's largest market for mobile ads.

On Tuesday, the company eMarketer released its first projections for ad spending on mobile marketing and found that the total market for advertising in the globally will reach $6.43 billion this year. Advertisers are expected to spend $2.4 billion on mobile advertising in the United States in 2012, up from $1.23 billion in 2011.
eMarketer estimates spending on mobile ads in Japan to reach $1.36 billion in 2012.

Spending on mobile ads in Western Europe is expected to reach $1.3 billion. Easter Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa lag behind substantially, at $121 million, $47 million and $3.1 million respectively.

The data includes spending on advertising in mobile applications, mobile Web and search , display ads, games and tablets. Data from text message advertising was not included.

Much of the growth in the market can be attributed to the rapid adoption of smartphones and mobile Internet usage, said Clark Fredricksen, vice president of communications and eMarketer. “Marketers in the U.S. are much more comfortable now than ever before with incorporating mobile into their marketing mix.” Mr. Fredricksen said.

The market is expected to grow as more marketers take advantage of the location- based technologies in many smartphones, he added. “Things will get a lot more interesting and you'll probably see a lot more dollars headed to mobile.”

One such technology is geofencing where marketers send messages to consumer's mobile devices when they enter a specific geographic area, like a mall, a shop or even an event like a concert. Companies like Hewlett-Packard, Kmart, JetBlue and S. C. Johnson have already begun experim enting with geofencing.

Despite the massive gains in the mobile marketplace, spending will still only represent one percent of total ad spending worldwide, Mr. Fredricksen said. “It's going to be a really long time before mobile challenges other mainstay global ad channels.”