According to the latest Global Mobile Media Forecast from Strategy Analytics, consumers are expected to increase their spend on mobile media by a further 13.4 percent from $121.8 billion in 2011 to $138.2 billion in 2012.
In contrast, advertiser spend on mobile media is expected to almost double (85.4 percent) from $6.3 billion to $11.6 billion, resulting in the total mobile media economy reaching $149.8 billion in revenue in 2012 - a 17.0 percent increase on 2011.
While the lion’s share of consumer spend (60.2 percent) is on data plans and web browsing - making mobile operators the key beneficiaries to the tune of $82.8 billion in 2012, up 9.5 percent on 2011 - a key driver of growth is the apps market on smartphones, such as the iPhone and Android devices. Over 23 billion apps were downloaded globally in 2011, increasing by 38 percent to over 32 billion in 2012. Apps are now the second largest category for revenues – for both consumer and advertiser spend - and are becoming the key distribution mechanism for media on mobile phones.
Apps are expected to account for 18.9 percent of global consumer spend in 2012 – $26.1 billion, up 30.7 percent on 2011 – but the strength of the apps ecosystem is also demonstrated by advertiser spend. For example, across the USA and major Western European markets as a whole, revenue from display ads on the mobile web ($934.5 million) has been overtaken by in-app advertising ($1.7 billion).
The US Mobile Media Economy
The US mobile media economy is expected to outperform the global growth figure, increasing by 22.1 percent to nearly $38 billion in 2012. US consumer spending is also expected to outperform the global rate (15.5 percent vs. 13.4 percent) rising to approximately $33.7 billion. Advertiser spend on mobile media is projected to more than double in 2012, increasing 128.9 percent to just under $4.2 billion.
US consumers are expected to spend $6.7 billion on mobile apps in 2012, a 24.6 percent increase over 2011, and accounting for 20 percent of all US consumers mobile spend. In direct correlation to this, US advertising revenue on mobile apps is projected to reach $1.2 billion in 2012, a 118 percent increase over 2011. Again, the strength of the apps ecosystem in the US is evidenced by the fact that in-app advertising revenue is more than double the revenue from mobile Web display advertising in 2012, which is only projected to reach $556 million.
124.9 million Americans are expected to access social networks via their handset in 2012, yet the amount of revenue this will generate for social networks is only expected to reach $412.7 million or $3.48 per mobile user during the year.