Mobile search ads market to grow

The US market for mobile searches will grow from $20 million in 2008 to $1.3 billion in 2013, according to a new report from the Kelsey Group.

The new report, “Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity”, shows only 20% of US mobile phone subscribers access the web on their mobiles, while only 5.2 million use it for searches. But it predicts habits will change, and more data networks will increase searches.

“As mobile data consumption rises, we expect local marketing to be a big winner,” said Michael Boland, the Kelsey Group’s program director, in a statement.

“There is a strong correlation between local search and the mobile use case, which will cause a good portion of the ongoing mobile application boom to focus on local.”

The report says the iPhone 3G is the most likely form of searching, as out of the 15,000 applications available at the App store, nearly 15% are designed for local search functions.