Video to drive mobile ad market

Global mobile advertising spend is expected reach $18 billion in 2014, up from the estimated $13.1 billion in 2013, according to a Gartner report. While display formats will make up for most of the revenue, video will show the highest growth. However, the growth in mobile advertising spend is expected to be slow because ad space inventory supply is growing faster than demand. This is because the number of mobile websites and applications are increasing faster than brands requesting ad space on mobile device screens.

With regard to the different ad formats used in the mobile sector, mobile display ad formats are collectively the single biggest category of ads. The report says, by 2017, uptake of the audio/video format will be higher due to rise in tablet market. In addition, search/map ad types will benefit from increased use of location data gathered from users, either through them opting into 'being located' automatically through their devices or because they proactively check in the places they visit using apps such as Foursquare and Pinterest. As a result, local advertisers will prefer mobile channel to push ads.

Even as all regions of the world are expected to register strong growth in mobile advertising spend, Asia/Pacific and Japan, being mature markets, will register slow growth 2014 and 2017, averaging 30 per cent a year.