Mobile advertising in India will be a $100 million market soon

With over 270 million mobile users, India is considered probably the hottest mobile phone market in the world. With this being the case, mobile advertisers are trying to cash in on the opportunity, as expected. As we’ve already seen, Indian operators are excited about mobile advertising and they see it as a potential long term revenue generating model. So, it’s only a matter of time before mobile advertising takes off big time in India.

Industry experts have predicted that mobile phone advertising in India would be worth more than $100 million in just a few years from now. Considering the market is currently valued at a measly $1million, it looks like quite a prediction. But experts firmly believe that the Indian market has the potential to become one of the top players in the world as far as mobile advertising is concerned. However, there are a couple of issues which need to be addressed to make this happen.

First, the cost of mobile web should be brought down. Though data plans in India are pretty much affordable, mobile web is one area where they can bring down the cost furthermore to attract more users to use the mobile internet facility regularly.

Second, the issue of revenue sharing between advertisers and mobile operators is an area of concern. Right now, the ratio is 70:30 with 70% of the revenue going to mobile operators and 30% going to advertisers. Understandably, advertisers are not exactly happy with this disproportionate sharing and they want this ratio to be revised.

Experts say that if mobile operators and advertisers could address these issues, the market may reach the $100 million mark sooner than later.

I actually think the issues mentioned here are common for markets all over the world. Even in the U.S., not everyone with a web-enabled phone is enthusiastic about surfing the web regularly, as the data plans are pretty costly. And the issue of disproportionate revenue sharing is not unheard of either, as the spat between Verizon and Google is well known. So, it’s basically an inherent flaw in the system. Unless people address this issue, there will always be hurdles in the path.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

0 comments.