• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 7, 2011

The number of mobile display advertisers has doubled in the last two years, according to a new comScore study. As of April, 689 advertisers ran mobile display campaigns, up 128% from the same period in 2009.

Most of the advertising was endemic, with mobile content and publishing accounting for half of the ads. The finding was based on tracking of mobile ads across more than 600 of the top sites and "sub-sites' on the mobile Web.

Consumer discretionary goods made up 26% of mobile ads, while other categories, such as information technologies, financial services, telecom, were 7% or less.

The growing use of smartphones is helping to drive mobile advertising. Specifically, smartphone owners were far more likely than feature phone users to access in-app ads, at 27.5% versus 5%. That's a result of their heavier use of mobile browsers and apps.

The findings: 85% of smartphone owners have used an app and 82% browse the mobile Web, compared to 16% and 19% of feature phone users, respectively.