Telecom operator such as SingTel, Sprint, Telefonica and Verizon are leading the $100 billion Mobile Advertising market, said Strategy Analytics.
Strategy Analytics suggests that mobile operators should be doing more to leverage subscriber data in mobile advertising.
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Majority of operators are failing to take advantage of strong demand for transparent, precise and verifiable audience data from media buyers despite being perceived as providing “gold standard” audience data by digital marketers.
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Wireless service revenue from user-linked subscriptions (excluding M2M) increased by 0.3 percent in 2015 and will grow by 0.6 percent in 2016 to $864 billion. 4G will overtake 3G technologies in revenue generation this year, accounting for 49 percent of revenue from a 25 percent share of year-end subscriptions.
Who is leading in mobile advertising market
SingTel and Verizon are “Transformers,” aggressively spanning network, ad-tech and media domains, while “Ad-Tech Players” such as Telefonica, Sprint and Telenor, have chosen to focus on advertising technology.
Ericsson and Smartpipe are enabling operators to take a passive approach as “Data Providers” while Digicel and Three are “Cry Babies” given their anti-advertising positions.
Most operators are yet to participate in mobile advertising despite being uniquely placed to provide media buyers with verified subscriber data tied to valuable demographic and behavioral attributes at scale.
Global mobile operator revenue is expected to decline from 2019 onwards. The report suggests that mobile advertising should not be overlooked.
“Operator subscriber data has potential to provide a shot-to-the arm for the programmatic mobile advertising ecosystem beyond Facebook and Google,” said David Kerr, senior vice president of Strategy Analytics.
However, telecom operators must also tread carefully and ensure strict compliance with privacy and data protection regulations, particularly across the European Union with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force in May 2018.
