Three-fifths of smartphone users saw mobile ads in Q1

Thirty-eight percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers recall seeing advertising on their phones in the first quarter of 2009, with ad recall rising to 59 percent among smartphone users, according to a new study conducted by market research firm GfK Technology on behalf of social networking service provider Brightkite. While a majority of feature phone users cite SMS as the dominant advertising channel on their devices, smartphone users saw most of their ads on the mobile web. In addition, 20 percent of smartphone users saw ads in mobile social networks and 15 percent encountered ads in mobile TV/video services. According to GfK, the number of smartphone users who saw ads inside a location-based network has almost tripled in the last three months to 15 percent, and the firm suggests that at current formats, some of these new formats will surpass the mobile web and/or SMS by year's end.

Additional findings of the GfK/Brightkite study:

• Fourteen percent of mobile subscribers now use one or more location-based services (including 38 percent of iPhone users).
• Ten percent use a mobile social network (including 33 percent of iPhone users).
• Games is the fastest growing application category among iPhone, experiencing 21 percent quarter-over-quarter growth--50 percent of iPhone owners now play games on the device.

For more on the GfK/Brightkite study:
- read this release

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