According to estimates from IDC published in the new BusinessWeek, Apple’s innovative iAd mobile advertising platform will likely have captured nearly one quarter of the entire U.S. mobile advertising market before 2010 draws to a close.
If that eventuality manifests, Apple’s market share will be tied with Google and triple that of Microsoft.
“Apple’s acquisition of Quattro and Steve Jobs’s launch of iAd put a spotlight on mobile advertising,” said Paran Johar of Jumptap. And although Apple’s iAd network hasn’t grown as quickly as Apple CEO Steve Jobs initially predicted, his company’s foray into mobile marketing has captured a significant chunk of its competitors’ thunder in the mobile space with no sign of relenting on the horizon.
With the iAd platform poised to expand to the iPad in November, the growth of iAd in 2011 could be exponential.
“Google’s mobile-ad sales are experiencing fast growth,” said Jason Spero, director of mobile for the Americas at Google. “If we are losing share, this market is growing faster than any one we’ve seen,” Spero says in an interview. Google has increased its investments in mobile advertising and AdMob will launch new features in 2011,” he added.
By the end of 2010, IDC expects Apple and Google to each maintain a 21% share of the market.