Forecast: Mobile game ad spend to reach $900 million by 2015

Advertising spend across the mobile gaming segment will increase tenfold over the next five years, growing from $87 million worldwide in 2010 to $894 million in 2015, according to a new Juniper Research forecast. Crediting the expected ad spend surge to escalating brand interest in both the mobile advertising channel and the application download model, Rovio also credits the success of breakout hits like Rovio Mobile's Angry Birds, which is available to consumers as a free, ad-subsidized release and premium download.

"Angry Birds has been a huge hit over the last year on the iPhone since its launch; but arguably its relative impact, in terms of downloads, has been bigger on Getjar and, more recently, on Android Market, as a result of offering the game free with ads," said Juniper analyst Daniel Ashdown in a prepared statement. "Users get a great game for free, but advertisers get significant product/brand exposure; the same is true of mobile games as marketing tools."

Juniper nevertheless anticipates end-user revenues will remain the engine driving the mobile game sector moving forward, with paid downloads and in-game purchases 10 times higher than ad spend by 2015.

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