Gartner has forecasted the global mobile advertising spending to reach $41.9 billion by 2017 on the back of improved market conditions. This year, the market is expected to increase to $18.0 billion, up from the estimated $13.1 billion in 2013, driven mainly by display formats, which are projected to make up the biggest chunk of the revenue. Gartner anticipates the display category to shift to mobile web display, after several years of high growth in the in-app display. The shift, however, may be delayed due to the slow adoption of HTML5 in the mobile website development, which is an important factor to drive the mobile web display. In terms of mobile ad types, video is expected to take the lead, driven by tablets form factor and its widespread usage.
According to the report, all regions of the world will experience strong growth in mobile advertising spend, although North America will remain on top due to the sheer scale of its advertising budgets and their shift to mobile lifestyles. In the emerging markets, Russia, Brazil and Mexico will feature prominently with strong expansion expected in 2014 while across Asia and Pacific, mobile ad market growth is expected to be slower except for China where the adoption of mobile technology among its middle class will spur strong growth in the mobile advertising segment.
"Over the next few years, growth in mobile advertising spending will slow due to ad space inventory supply growing faster than demand, as the number of mobile websites and applications increases faster than brands request ad space on mobile device screens," said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. "However, from 2015 to 2017, growth will be fueled by improved market conditions, such as provider consolidation, measurement standardization and new targeting technologies, along with a sustained interest in the mobile medium from advertisers." "Western Europe's market for mobile advertising will remain similar to North America's, albeit at a slightly lower scale, for the duration of the forecast period. “The mobile channel will become more and more integrated into 360-degree advertising campaigns, eating up budget historically allocated to print and radio advertising,” said Ms. Baghdassarian.
“North America is the region with the strongest general advertising focus and investment. It is also the region where online advertising is most mature," said Mike McGuire, research vice president at Gartner. "Overall advertising budgets are the highest, so when a portion shifts to mobile, in a multiplatform approach, it immediately impacts the market's scale."
