Juniper Research estimates that total annual advertising spend on mobile services will exceed $1 billion (500 million) for the first-time during 2008.
It also that over the course of the year it will reach $1.3 billion (650 million), rising to nearly $7.6 billion (3.8 billion) by 2013. This represents an average annual growth rate of 42 per cent.
In addition to text or SMS messages, the Mobile Advertising, Delivery Channels, Strategies & Forecasts 2008-2013 report said various other mobile services have gained in popularity, including ringtones, games, video clips and - most recently - streamed and broadcast video and full track music downloads.
Combined, it concludes that these different types of content provide an enormous opportunity for the advertising industry.
Dr Windsor Holden Juniper Research principal analyst and the report's author stated that higher speed networks and new generation mobile handsets would drive the growing use of mobile advertising.
3G services enable many of the more attractive forms of mobile entertainment, including mobile TV, video, online games and full-track music, the report said. And content that is more attractive to consumers is also more attractive to advertisers, providing additional opportunities including pre-roll and post-roll mobile TV commercials and richer in-content advertising.
Recent enhancements to handsets will provide greater opportunity to advertisers with features such as MMS support, WAP 2.0 browsers and hi-resolution screens enabling the transmission of more multimedia ad content.
"The advertising model on mobile is increasingly being designed around a model under which consumers will actually opt-in to advertising services if they are sufficiently convinced by the value proposition," it said, adding weight to its prediction that instead of spending budget on television advertisements, which consumers want to avoid, advertisers have the option of directing their spending towards ads that consumers have elected to receive.
