The mobile industry is growing in a much faster rate than almost anybody has expected. Consequently, mobile ad spending projections, that already jumped to the roof before, are now also increasing accordingly. The major beneficiaries from this great increase are the leading mobile advertising platforms such as Google’s.

eMarketer Updating Their Mobile Ad Spending Prediction Upwards

Today, the research firm eMarketer has released an updated forecast for the U.S. ad spending from 2011 to 2016. Due to the faster mobile industry growth rate, the forecast has been updated dozens of percentages upwards (from +45% in 2012 and up to +97% difference in 2015) from the prior forecast from few months ago.

eMarketer predicts that the mobile ad spending in 2012 will reach to $2.61 billion in the U.S. alone, representing 80% increase from 2011. As the yearly growth rate will gradually decline, however will still show strong double digits percentage growth, it will climb to $10.83 billion in 2016. This is a jump of more than 4 times as much in five years!

• 2011- $1.45 billion (+89% from the year before)
• 2012- $2.61 billion (+80%)
• 2013- $4.31 billion (+65%)
• 2014- $6.46 billion (+50%)
• 2015- $8.66 billion (+34%)
• 2016- $10.83 billion (+25%)

The research firm also breaks down the mobile advertising formats share. The strongest mobile ad format is search that will remain stabilized at 48.5% by 2016. Mobile display ads will grow from 30.7% in 2011 to 37% in 2016, mobile video ads will rise from 4.7% in 2011 to 10% in 2016 and “old” ads formats like SMS/MMS will drop from 19.6% in 2011 to 4.5% in 2016.

Google Mobile Revenue Predicted Rising To Nearly $6 Billion In 2012

Jim Friedland, the senior research analyst of the financial services firm, Cowen Group, is estimating that Google’s mobile ad revenue will grow exponentially: In 2012 it will reach to nearly $6 billion, more than double as it was in 2011, and it will constitute as 13% of Google’s total revenue this year.

Google’s mobile ad revenue will keep climbing fast until 2016 (last predicted year) where it will constitute as 26% of the total revenue of Google with almost $21 billion! The analyst’s model is basing the prediction on the number of active smart mobile devices worldwide and on the assumption that Google will produce $7 from each of those devices each year.

• 2011- $2.5 billion (7% of the total revenue)
• 2012- $5.8 billion (13%)
• 2013- $9.9 billion (18%)
• 2014- $13.7 billion (21%)
• 2015- $17.4 billion (24%)
• 2016- $20.7 billion (26%)