Publishers and social media services now dominate mobile advertising

Publishers, including social media services such as Facebook and Twitter, collected more mobile display ad revenue in the US than traditional ad networks such as Google, according to a new IDC report.

According to the report, advertisers spent $US2.8 billion on mobile search ads during 2012, compared to $US1.6 billion in 2011 and $US0.7 billion in 2010, although growth rates have slowed from 195% in 2010 to 68% in 2012.

Of that total, mobile display advertising in the US accounted for 39% of all ads in the US, with traditional web search ads accounting for 61% of sales.

In the mobile display sector of the market, publishers controlled 52% of US mobile display revenue in 2012, compared to just 39% in 2011, at the expense of ad networks that display advertising in other company’s apps and mobile sites.

Mobile ad networks are losing market share to publishers, and we expect them to lose even more going forward,” said Karsten Weide, IDC’s vice president of media and entertainment IDC.

“Networks, especially independent ones, are entering a difficult phase, in which, with an ever smaller share of revenue, they’ll have to compete with publishers, which will only grow in strength.”

Of the publishers, Facebook led the charge in 2012 with $US234 million gross revenue, with mobile music service Pandora claiming second place with $US229 million in advertising and Twitter coming in third with $US117 million.

Google remains the dominant ad network with $US243 million in gross revenue, with Millennial Media ($US151 million) overtaking Apple ($US125 million) to claim the second spot, with Jumptap claiming fourth on $US90 million.