Huge growth reported in emerging market mobile advertising

Growth in the world-wide mobile advertising market is up dramatically, and is particularly strong in emerging markets, says global mobile media company BuzzCity.

South African mobile advertising shot up by an impressive 65% in the 2^nd quarter of 2010 — the fourth highest, behind Kenya who recorded a massive 243% growth. Vietnam grew at 273%, and Ghana showed a staggering 654% growth rate, although this is “off an admittedly very low base”.

BuzzCity reports that worldwide there has been an increased focus on mobile advertising, with 44 countries delivering monthly traffic exceeding 10 million impressions per month, 12 more countries than were reported during the 1^st Quarter.

The company claims to have delivered a massive 12,8-billion ad impressions in the second quarter of 2010 across 200 countries, so their data presents a fair indication of the world-wide mobile advertising picture.

Increased advertiser interest was noted from large players such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN, as well as sporting brands like Puma and Adidas who took advantage of the 2010 Fifa World Cup to promote their brands to consumers on the move.

In terms of overall ad banners served, BuzzCity’s top five advertising countries were Indonesia (52% growth), India (98% growth), United States (62% growth), South Africa and Vietnam (273% growth).

KF Lai, CEO of BuzzCity explains: “The cost reductions in South Africa are good for growth of the media. We have seen MTN cut 84 per cent from its out-of-bundle data costs, to R0.32/MB.

“The catch is that this only applies to out-of-bundle data, but is at least a step in the right direction as 80 per cent of South Africans are on prepaid plans.”