Summary Observations
One clear conclusion from this global mobile overview is just how diverse the mobile landscape is from country to country. In terms of consumer adoption, device/OS market share, and local IAB priority, mobile varies widely from country to country.
Countries like Denmark, where mobile ad spend is relatively low and mobile therefore is not yet an important advertising priority, lie at one extreme, while countries like Canada, Mexico, the UK and the US already see significant advertiser interest in mobile media. All of the IAB’s that participated in this anthology are devoting increasing resources to promoting mobile media.
Another clear conclusion is that when it comes to advanced mobile media and internet use, the US is on a par with many other developed countries. In the early days of mobile the US, with its lagging and fragmented mobile network technologies, clearly lagged behind most European countries in terms of mobile penetration and usage. Times have changed. A recent comScore report2 shows that smartphone penetration of the mobile audience in the US compares favorably to smartphone adoption in the five largest EU countries. When it comes to mobile internet/media usage, too, adoption in the US compares very favorably to many other
countries. While over three quarters of mobile consumers in Japan use mobile media, Japan and South Korea will likely always be outliers in terms of mobile data. US mobile media usage compares favorably with the UK, however, and exceeds usage in Canada and the other four largest European Union countries.
