The Mobile Search Economy
Creating The Mobile Search Marketing Space

We believe that mobile search can be effectively used to create both a premier mobile user experience and to generate revenues through advertising. mobilePeople has therefore launched a seminal industry wide “Mobile Search and Discovery Initiative” with the Mobile Entertainment Forum which provides a forum for the mobile, media and advertising industries to enhance and monetize through mobile search.

Today there are over 2.2 Billion mobile phone users worldwide. It is predicted that by 2009 there will be over 3 Billion. More people around the globe have access to a mobile device than to a PC. As mobile Internet usage continues to grow mobilePeople believes that it will quickly become the dominant access platform of the future.

Mobile subscribers will generate significant mobile search traffic, creating a tremendous revenue opportunity through search marketing models – which today are the fastest growing advertising type online. As of April 2006, an estimated 28% of mobile users had accessed the Internet via their mobile phone, up from 25% in late 2004. Global search revenues are projected to generate $5.5 billion in 2005 and $11 billion by 2008 (source: Piper Jaffray). Mobile search advertising and display is estimated to be a $5.8 billion market by 2011 (source: Informa).

Mobile search advertising allows businesses to reach potential consumers who are looking for contextual relevant content and services, anywhere, even far away from a PC or wired network connection. Based on our experience mobile search is driven by a combination of “infotainment” (e.g. music, pictures, games, news, information) and “local content” (e.g. retail, shopping, phone numbers, utility). Compared to the Internet search functions offered by online search engines the mobile landing page needs to offer users direct answers and actionable results opposed to links which leads to more searching.

As a consequence of returning actionable results following a search for infotainment and/or local search the focus needs to lie on generating a direct transaction.  This transaction may include; the user purchasing and downloading a content item, participating in an opinion poll, receiving a coupon, or making a phone call.

Mobile search will define the way users interact with their handsets by being the primary means for finding and discovering the content, products and services they need. Improving user satisfaction and usability is therefore critical to any mobile search strategy to increase purchases and enable advertising growth.

Currently many different players are taking a keen interest in the mobile search market. There is a plethora of Internet-focused and mobile-specific search companies entering the mobile arena. Many come with huge budgets for development and established marketing agreements with either mobile network operators and/or media companies. As such, the battle for supremacy in the wireless world is going to be as tough. Maybe tougher than the ongoing fight for Internet search dominance between Google, Yahoo, MSN and others.