• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, February 27, 2012

Google's revenue from mobile ads should reach about $4.5 billion in fiscal year 2012, estimates Gene Munster, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray. The research note, published Monday, explains that 50% of the total mobile revenue will likely come from Android devices, up from 30% in fiscal year 2011. In comparison, the analyst firm believes Google Search generated about $24 per user in 2011 -- and in total, generated about $32 per user.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google Global Head of Mobile Sales and Strategy Jason Spero revealed to an audience on Monday a dozen predictions, and mobile trends for 2012, mostly in Europe. Smartphones in Spain rose 11% to 44% of the total population last year -- a major increase compared with a 7% jump to 38% of the total population in the United States.

The research -- Our Mobile Planet: Global Smartphone Users -- from Google and Ipsos aims to help the industry gain a better understanding of how consumers use their smartphones. In Germany, 67% of smartphone owners use their mobile device while on public transport. In the U.K., 84% of smartphone owners look for local information on their mobile device, and 78% call or visit the business, or take some other form of action. In France, 90% of smartphone users use their mobile device to access the Web daily.

Google will add the data to its Our Mobile Planet Web site, featuring an interactive tool that anyone can use to create custom charts to gain a better understanding of mobile consumers.

Spero predicts a big year for mobile. Among the dozen predictions, he believes more than 1 billion people will use mobile devices as their primary Internet access point. Count on 10 days where mobile searches represent more than 50% of trending search terms. Mobile's role in driving people into stores will exceed expectations. Mobile-driven spend will emerge as a major category for advertising. About 80% of the largest 2,000 Web sites globally will have an HTML5 site. And 1 million small businesses globally will go mobile with a mobile Web site.

Time spent consuming digital content rose 70% during the last six months. This can be attributed to more sophisticated content as well as the continued adoption of tablets, according to research from Adobe Systems. About 56% of readers spend between 25 minutes and 2.5 hours a month reading digital titles. The company released today key insights about digital magazine and newspaper application use, based on anonymous data aggregated from nearly 600 publishers worldwide who have created around 1,500 tablet publications using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.