Mobile search poised for big growth

[Adrian]

With so many millions of web-capable phones owned by people, the possibility exists for mobile search advertising to eclipse conventional search ads.

An eMarketer survey forecasted mobile search ads to reach a global total of $3.8 billion by 2012. Compared to the global search market ad prediction by JP Morgan of $60 billion in spending by 2011, and one might wonder what eMarketer might be thinking.

The answer would be phenomenal growth. People are not using mobile search today in the numbers of online search volume. The school of thought here is mobile search will track the growth of paid search, according to eMarketer’s report:

“Mobile search providers across the board are reporting sharply increased mobile search traffic,” says John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, Mobile Search: Location, Location, Location.

“The numbers coming from the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific suggest that mobile search traffic is starting to resemble Internet search traffic both in variety and potentially in volume,” Mr. Gauntt said.

There’s no shortage of tech talent when it comes to building the mobile search experience. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask all have people working on making sure their product becomes a default for mobile searchers. At stake: billions in mobile search ad revenue, possibly for whoever does the best job at becoming a “first mover” in the space.

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