Never mind the fact that nearly 40 percent of mobile ad clicks are either accidental or fraudulent – the folks from eMarketer say that mobile ad revenues in the US will grow from $1.45 billion in 2011 to $6.62 billion in 2014. The New York-based research group projects that by 2016, the US mobile advertising market will be close to $12 billion.
It should come as a surprise that search-and-advertising giant Google which also owns Android OS, will continue to dominate the industry and will grow at a monster speed. However, it is Pandora and Twitter that stand out for their mobile ad revenues.
According to a eMarketer press release, “On a net basis, Pandora Media has emerged as one of the strongest US mobile display ad sellers, and its share of the total US mobile display market is expected to reach 20.5% in 2012.” By 2014, Pandora will have 7.5 percent of the mobile ad market, while Twitter will come in at 6.7 percent.
While Twitter is beating Facebook as of now, it won’t be long before Facebook makes a comeback and takes about 9.5 percent of the market in 2014. Apple’s (a AAPL) iAd continues to struggle and perhaps it is time for Apple to rethink its ad-foray and instead go back to its knitting.
As a heavy mobile web-user, I would just be grateful that these giants come up with better and smarter mobile advertising formats instead of the banner-based advertising that is not optimized for the small screens.