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The MMA (Mobile Marketing Association), in partnership with exchange4media, today released the first mobile advertising spend report for India, which estimates the size of the current spend at Rs 180 crore (US$33 million), and is expected to increase by 40 per cent in the next 12 months. The report was released at the inaugural Mobile Marketing Association Forum (MMAF) India 2012 underway at The Leela Kempinsky, Gurgaon.
According to the report, industry leaders including brands and agencies indicate that mobile advertising is 10 per cent of the overall digital advertising spends in India. The MMA believes that there are more than 12 crore (120 million) mobile internet users in India. Many advertisers are yet not exploring the medium at all bringing the overall digital spends in India at five to seven per cent of the overall advertising pie in India, which is pegged at Rs 27,000 crore to Rs 28,000 crore (US$5 billion toUS$5.1billion), according industry estimates. The report is based on extensive research conducted by exchange4media and inputs from brands, agencies and the mobile ecosystem in India in September 2012.
“Mobile is an exciting, fast-growing category, but it’s still a very small piece of the overall ad pie. Mobile advertising is growing at a fast pace and will soon challenge other channels. Growth of ad spends, and the constant evolution of mobile, will make it a stand-alone medium that will act as a connecting tissue for traditional media which is what we have discovered while doing our research in the Indian market on mobile advertising,” said Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, MMA, Asia Pacific. “We are already seeing digital spends exceed traditional in markets like Australia. This is a sign of how the market will evolve.”
Commenting on the report, Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, exchange4media Group said “A report of this nature was an absolute must for a dynamic market like India. We feel that one of the first challenges that mobile faces in becoming a marketing medium to reckon with, is the absence of a widely accepted metric that can gauge how the medium has delivered for those who have invested in it, and become a currency. Mobile advertising will soon be a leg of mobile marketing in India that, courtesy the intense work of the service providers and the burgeoning players of the mobile ecosystem in India, will see many facets including value added services, promotions on mobile, apps as a medium in itself and much, much more.”
Display, search and SMS (measured and opt-in) are the key drivers contributing to mobile advertising spends in India, and will help drive the growth of the medium and ad spends to Rs 250 crore (US$50 million) in 2013.
The report further elaborates how for many large advertisers, digital still is 10 per cent to 25 per cent of their overall ad budgets in India.