Mobile Ad Spending to Double

Mobile advertising still isn’t huge, but it’s growing at a breakneck clip. Gartner Research estimates that worldwide spending on mobile advertising will double in 2011 to $3.3 billion from $1.6 billion in 2010.

While flashy executions like Apple’s iAds get all the limelight, Gartner sees the growth as driven by the more prosaic vehicles of search and mapping.

North America mobile ad spending is expected to more than double from $304.3 million in 2010 to $701.7 million in 2011. By 2015, that’s expected to reach nearly $5.8 billion. Worldwide, Gartner pegs mobile ad spending in 2015 at $20.6 billion.

“As the adoption of smartphones and media tablets extends to more consumers, the audience for mobile advertising will increase and become easier to segment and target, driving the growth of mobile advertising spend for brands and advertisers,” said Andrew Frank, research vice president at Gartner, in a statement. “Brand marketers who want to include mobile in their advertising initiatives should not delay their trials, and should have their budgets in place now to take advantage of mass consumer adoption of smartphones and media tablets.”

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