In partnership with exchange4media, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has recently released their first mobile advertising spend report for India, at the inaugural Mobile Marketing Association Forum (MMAF) India 2012. The report is based on broad research conducted by exchange4media and inputs from brands, agencies and the mobile ecosystem in India in September 2012.
The report highlights 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.
Rohit Dadwal, MD, Asia Pacific, MMA, explained, “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. We are already seeing digital spends exceed traditional in markets like Australia. This is a sign of how the market will evolve.”
According to the industry leaders including brands and agencies, 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.
Report further states that 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.
Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-In-Chief, exchange4media 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.”
