It’s become a cliche at this point, but new stats show 2009 moved at least closer to becoming the fabled year when mobile advertising takes off properly.
Spend on UK mobile ads rose 32 percent from 2008 to £37.6 million ($57.8 million), says the Internet Advertising Bureau UK with PwC.
Mobile is certainly now growing a lot faster than online advertising, which pulled only 4.2 percent more money in 2009, according to the same research partners. But it’s a drop in the ocean compared with the £3.54 billion online commanded…
The detail…
— Search 54 percent of mobile ads: In keeping with online, search ads are the fastest-growing kind on mobile – up 42 percent to £20.2 million.
— Display 46 percent of mobile ads: Display ads (banners, text links, pre-/post-roll and in-game ads) pulled in 24 percent more money at £17.4 million.
— Text messages unfancied: SMS/MMS ads attracted just £1.2 million last year, up 26 percent.
With so much activity in the mobile ads space even since 2009 ended, expect 2010 to be another year of (slightly more) mobile advertising…