• by Steve Smith  @popeyesm, January 21, 2014

While the rate of growth will slow in coming years, mobile ad spend momentum will continue at a sharp pace in coming years, according to new projections from Gartner. Worldwide spending on mobile ads will increase to $18 billion in 2014 -- up from $13.1 billion in 2013, the company expects. By 2017, the market will reach $41.9 billion, however.

Growth will continue to be restrained by an oversupply of inventory, Gartner finds. “However, from 2015 to 2017, growth will be fueled by improved market conditions, such as provider consolidation, measurement standardization and new targeting technologies, along with a sustained interest in the mobile medium from advertisers,” says Gartner Research director Stephanie Baghdassarian in the report.

The rise of the mobile Web will bring a shift in growth away from in-app display to Web display. But a key driver of that shift, use of HTML5, is taking longer than expected to proliferate. The increased adoption of tablets will help audio and video ad formats grow as well. the increased use of location data will fuel growth in search and mapping categories.

North America will continue to lead in mobile ad spend because it is the region with the largest overall investment in advertising. “When a portfolio shifts in mobile, in a multiplatform approach, it immediately impacts the market's scale,” says Research VP Mike McGuire in the report. For Western Europe, Gartner expect growth to impact radio and print advertising, where many marketers will draw funds to mobile budgets.

Mobile ad market growth will slow most noticeably in the Asia and Pacific regions because that is where the formats are most mature. Nevertheless, China will become an important source of growth in the region as its middle class embraces mobile technology. In emerging markets, Russia, Brazil and Mexico will be areas of especially strong expansion.