Mobile advertising may have slowed sharply over the past few months, but it's expected to reaccelerate next year, says a new report from Magna's Brian Wieser, who is Global Director of
Forecasting. Dow Jones' Scott Morrison says the market would be boosted by a growing number of cell phones built with Google's mobile operating system software, Android, According to Wieser,
U.S. advertisers will spend $229 million on mobile ads this year, up 26% from 2008. That's a significant downward revision from the 43% increase that Magna forecasted last July, but Wieser still
thinks that despite the slowdown, mobile spending should nearly double by 2011, reaching $409 million. Part of the problem, he said, is that the mobile advertising market is a "highly fragmented
group of divergent advertising models collectively organized around portable media." However, despite fragmentation, "every player is investing against the long-term promise of the platform,
so I don't think anyone is slowing down," said Wieser.
Google, for one, certainly isn't slowing down. Last month, CEO Eric Schmidt said he expected Android to have a
"very, very strong year," adding that a number of wireless carriers and hardware makers would be making "significant" Android-related announcements by the end of the year.
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