I wonder how successful Google has been with its mobile advertising. It's difficult to find statistics. According to eMarketer, the mobile ad business will reach $416 million in 2009. Pretty small compared to the $16.4 billion in ad revenues Google took in just through Q3 this year. But everyone (including Google) says mobile advertising is The Future. Assuming they figure out how to offer ads on a tiny screen without getting in the way of what you're really trying to do, and people actually click on some of them.
No stats on respective market share of Google and AdMob in this market. Google is big in mobile search ads, AdMob in ads for mobile apps. Just as Google bought its way into display ads when it took in AdSense last year, it's doing the same with AdMob and mobile.
Interestingly, CNET shows a chart of the mobile ad market from eMarketer, which indicates that neither company is a player in the biggest segment of mobile advertising: text messaging ads, with 55% of the market.
So we can now look forward to two events: Anti-trust complaints about Google dominating another advertising market, and an announcement of Google buying up a text messaging advertiser. Anyone for 4INFO?
Tom Krazit at CNET has a nice summary of the purchase and how it fits in at Google.
