By Shelley Portet, Silicon.com, 28 October 2010 15:49

Mobile advertising will generate revenues of $3.5bn this year as big brands move from merely experimenting with mobile ads to spending significant money.

As media and consumer goods brands in particular try to increase their engagement with consumers via their mobile phones, this is creating momentum for the mobile advertising industry, which could be generating revenues of around $24bn within five years, the report from Informa Telecoms & Media has predicted.

Growth in the mobile advertising market over the past 12 months has been driven by Apple and Google's acquisitions of Quattro Wireless and AdMob respectively, according to the report author, Shailendra Pandey.

"The launch of Apple's iAd advertising platform is forcing rivals to speed up their own mobile advertising strategies. Google has responded by acquiring AdMob and has announced it is on track to generate US$1bn in revenues from mobile in 2010, a significant portion of which will be mobile advertising revenues. Google has also reported a 500 per cent growth in mobile search queries between 2008 and 2010," said Pandey in a statement.

Mobile advertising has moved away from an experimental phase and many brands are now spending significant sums on mobile campaigns on a regular basis, the research house said. Despite this trend, the next 12 to 18 months will see a period of consolidation in the mobile advertising market, it warned.