Global mobile location based advertising and marketing (LBA) revenues will soar to almost €5 billion ($6.47 billion) by 2016 and account for close to 30% of all mobile advertising and marketing income, Berg Insight predicts.
The research firm tips the LBA market to grow at a CAGR of 91% between 2011 and 2016, taking the total value from €192 million last year to €4.9 billion in 2016. The firm claims the figure will account for 28.3% of all mobile ad and marketing revenues by the end of its forecast period, and around 4% of all digital advertising.
Rickard Andersson, telecom analyst with the firm, states growth will be driven by growing deployment of location technologies in handsets, and increasing consumer acceptance of location-based services. LBA is also becoming more mainstream after several years at an experimental stage, thanks to services including SMS, mobile search and coupons.
“Major brands are progressively embracing location-based advertising across the range of mobile formats, and LBA also opens up the mobile channel for new advertisers,” Andersson notes.
However, the research firm points out the LBA value chain remains fragmented due to the high number of players competing for market share, and a general lack of market maturity.