Global mobile ad revenues grew by 83% year-over-year in 2012, climbing from $4.8 billion to $8.9 billion, according to [pdf] a report from the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, IAB Europe and IHS. Search remained the chief driver of mobile ad revenues, eating up 53% share of spend in 2012, up from 51.1% the year before. Mobile search spend increased by 88.8%, a slightly faster rate than display’s 87.3% growth, which took it to 38.7% share of revenues.
The IAB earlier reported that mobile advertising grew by 111% in the US last year.
On a regional basis, North America’s share of global mobile advertising revenue increased from 34.5% to 39.8%, rivaling Asia-Pacific’s share, which fell from 45.9% to 40.2%. Western Europe was the only other region to enjoy a significant portion of global mobile ad revenues, at 16.9% last year.
Taking the spending figures and applying them against mobile subscriptions, the report finds that in North America, advertisers spent about $9 per mobile subscription (using the IAB’s exchange rates; figure quoted as €7.1 in the report), about double the per-subscription amount from 2011. Western Europe had the next-highest per-subscription ad spend, of roughly $3.
Other Findings:
- Messaging spend grew by a relatively slower 40.2%, as its share of total spend fell from 11.1% to 8.5%.
- While North America and Asia-Pacific (APAC) were virtually tied in terms of total mobile ad spend, they differed quite significantly by format, with APAC easily on top in display revenue and North America taking the lead in search revenue.
- Messaging’s share of mobile ad revenue was greatest in Latin America (66.7%) and smallest in APAC (4.6%). Search’s share was largest in Western Europe (59.8%) and smallest in Latin America (14.4%), while display’s share was biggest in APAC (47.1%) and smallest in Latin America (18.8%).
- Mobile display advertising revenues grew by 226.4% year-over-year in Latin America, and mobile search ad spending grew by 242.4%.
- APAC had the fastest messaging revenue growth, of 57.2%.
