Mobile adspend set to top $105bn by 2019

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of mobile. According to GSMA, there are currently around 3.6-billion unique mobile subscribers around the globe, with another billion expected to be added by 2020. By the time that happens, Sub-Saharan Africa alone is expected to have more than half a billion mobile subscribers. With that growth comes opportunity, especially in mobile advertising, which is expected to worth US$105-billion by 2019.

That’s according to a new paper by Juniper Research, which suggests that as mobile adspend tops the US$100-billion mark, it will also account for 44% of worldwide digital adspend around.

The research suggests that this increase in advertising spend is in large part attributable to an attitude shift amongst brands and retailers who now use mobile as a core channel for consumer engagement. It argues that the ability of smartphones to deliver targeted, personalised and timely advertising – allied to the media-stacking trends amongst consumers – means that mobile advertising offers both high visibility and high response rates.

The research also observes a marked uplift in ad spend within the Far East & China region, fuelled by the dramatic adoption of mCommerce retail activity within China, and claims that the region is expected to account for 43% of global mobile advertising spend in 2019.

What’s fueling that growth?

According to Juniper, most of the growth across the digital space will be driven by programmatic advertising (which is the Real Time Bidding of advertising space). Video advertising is also expected to see progressive growth due to the higher engagement rates of the medium.

Doing things the right way

If mobile, and digital advertisers as a whole, are to ride this wave successfully, they need to bear in mind that there are increasing concerns around consumer privacy, with advertisers keen to exploit ‘Big Data’ analytics to gain an insight into consumer online and offline behaviour, including purchasing patterns.

When a device user’s information is shared for advertising purposes, without their prior consent, consumers may feel a violation of their rights has occurred. It therefore stressed the need for consumers to be ‘opted-in’ to any data sharing to avoid both potential litigation and adverse publicity for the brands.