Mobile Ad Spend Up 32% say IAB/PwC

The UK mobile advertising market grew by 32% in 2009 to reach £37.6 million, according to the second annual study of the market carried out by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Every quarter in 2009 showed consistent, strong growth with Q4 delivering a record display advertising spend of £5.5 million – an increase of 28% over Q4 2008. The study also identifies Entertainment & Media as the biggest mobile advertising category, a long way ahead of Telecoms in second place. 
Here are the highlights of the report:

• Mobile search was the fastest growing format – up 41% to £20.2 million and a market share of 54% compared to 50% in 2008
• Mobile display – which includes banners, text links, tenancies, pre- and post-roll video and in-game advertising – grew by 24% to £17.4 million and a market share of 46%, compared to 50% in 2008.
• Spend on banners and text links was 26% year on year to £14.6 million
• Tenancies were up 17% year on year to £1.4 million
• Other formats, including display advertising within SMS/MMS, were up 26% year on year, to £1.2 million.
• The top five display advertising categories in 2009 were Entertainment & Media (61.5%); Telecoms (14.7%); Finance (8.1%); Consumer Goods (3.2%); and Government, social and political (2.7%).

Jon Mew, the IAB’s Head of Mobile says: “While market conditions saw many advertisers reduce their investment and testing on mobile, these findings paint a positive picture of a compelling new advertising medium. Mobile is an effective, highly targeted and complementary advertising channel. Signs are that 2010 will be important year as confidence and budgets increase.”
But  PwC’s Eva Berg-Winters points out that: "A successful year for mobile has been underpinned by mixed performances. There were two distinct approaches from advertisers and publishers. They either cut spend or continued to invest and develop their use of mobile - with a view to come out on top following the downturn. Recent investment in mobile has significantly outweighed the budget cuts. This signals the belief that it is set to become an important medium."
The study reports on actual media spend, in order to ensure fair comparison to other media, including display advertising. Figures do not include SMS/MMS production and delivery costs, nor other mobile marketing revenues such as app production. All growth figures are like for like, meaning that the results compare companies that submitted in 2008 and 2009. 17 companies representing “hundreds” of websites, took part in the survey. The figures in the report are based on participants’ data, except for search figures, which are derived from “modelling and industry estimates”.