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eMarketer analysts announced that they are revising up their forecasts for U.S. mobile ad spend to $2.61 billion, from their previous estimates of $1.8 billion. The revision is related to Google’s recent earnings release in which it shows a sizable increase in its mobile advertising revenues. The 2012 figure represents a rise of 80 percent on 2011 mobile advertising volume.
Yesterday Yahoo’s new CEO Scott Thompson claimed that there wasn’t yet a clear leader in mobile advertising, and that it was still an open field. That may be the case in that there is still a lot of room for growth, but there is actually a company dominating the mobile ad business at the moment and it clearly is Google. In 2011 eMarketer says that Google had about 51.7 percent of all mobile ad revenues, with sales of $750 million. The second-two biggest platforms were far behind it. Apple’s iAd took in only $90.9 million for a 6.3 percent stake; while Millennial earned $92.4 million for a 6.4 percent share.
Google totally dominated the mobile search category with 95% of all revenues. Google was not shabby in display, either, leading in that category, too—although not as comprehensively, with only 24.8 percent of the market, with Millennial Media and Apple’s iAd very close to each other for second place.
