Study predicts ten-fold rise in yearly mobile game ad-spend

A new study has predicted a ten-fold rise in mobile game advertising spend over the next five years as free download titles flood app stores.

The authors of the Juniper Research study believe that a proliferation of titles which are funded by their ad revenues rather than from purchase price will see the yearly mobile ad spend rise from the current figure of $87 million (£55.95m) to $893 million (£574m) by 2015.

"Angry Birds has been a huge hit over the last year on the iPhone since its launch; but arguably its relative impact, in terms of downloads, has been bigger on Getjar and, more recently, on Android Market, as a result of offering the game free with ads," said report author Daniel Ashdown.

"Users get a great game for free, but advertisers get significant product/brand exposure; the same is true of mobile games as marketing tools."

However, despite the increase, the report still predicts that end-user revenue will provide the lion's share of profits for companies on app stores across all platforms. In 2015, the report says, download and in-game purchase revenues will still amount to ten times the retail value of ad-spend.