The number of people who connect to the Internet using their phones is growing at an exponential rate driven by the penetration of smartphones and consumer fever for all kinds of tablets. Technology proposes and the users dispose; moving means carrying the social networks in your pocket and not being disconnected from the world.
These trends are solid to say the least in the United States, where mobile phone advertising is beginning to seduce the big brands while generating ambitious forecasts. According to the specialist consultant eMarketer, the spending on adverts of this type of media will be about $2.6 billion this year. This figure revises an earlier forecast of $1.8 billion, which shows the dynamism that characterizes the sector.
The recent history of the business has already given us some clues about its potential: in 2011 mobile phone advertising attracted investment worth $1.4 billion, doubling the figure for 2010.
Nevertheless, in the race to capture the millions of mobile device users, not all the figures show such dramatic changes. Google had a 51.7% share of sector revenue, which represented sales of $750 million. A long way behind, Apple had to make do with $92.4 million (6.4%) and Millennial with $90.9 million (6.3%).
The strength of the company founded by Larry Page and Sergei Brin is explained by its dominance of the mobile search category. Google has a 95% share of this market in which Apple and Millenial don’t compete at the moment
Mobile search driven sales
Despite the enormous commercial perspectives of mobile advertising, there are, nevertheless some enigmas to be resolved. What stands out about the
eMarketer figures is that most sales are linked to the mobile search sector. And experts see this trend continuing until at least 2016.
At the same time, other more sophisticated advertising formats (from videos to MMS and P2P messaging) appear to be relegated to a secondary role although there are expectations of sustained growth.
According to analysts, lesser spending on more sophisticated advertising may be explained by the lack of trust the big brands have in formats that they consider much less efficient compared to mobile search advertising.
Although with this scenario the pre-eminence of Google seems assured, the changing nature of the market and its investors may still surprise us.
