Facebook to win $1bn and 10% share of global mobile ad revenues in 2013

By Shailendra Pandey

Facebook is well on-track to generate revenues of over $1bn from mobile advertising in 2013. Looking at the company’s financial performance for the last two quarters, Informa Telecoms & Media predicts that Facebook alone could take around ten per cent share of the global mobile advertising revenues in 2013. The global mobile advertising market is forecast to generate revenues of $12.8bn in 2013, according to the latest research published by Informa Telecoms & Media.

The contribution of mobile advertising in Facebook’s total ad revenues grew from 14 per cent in Q312 to 23 per cent in Q412. During this period, Facebook made mobile advertising revenues of around $457.9m ($305.9m in Q4 and $152m in Q3). Provided Facebook can continue to get at least 20 per cent of its total ad revenues from mobile, it should be able to easily make over $1bn from mobile advertising in 2013.

Facebook’s results for the last two quarters are encouraging, especially as there were growing concerns about its ability to monetize the growing mobile traffic after the company’s disappointing first earnings report following its IPO in May 2012. However, despite the improving results, Facebook is yet to establish a good enough model for mobile advertising that can consistently attract brands and advertisers. Compared to ad spending on the fixed Internet, brands are spending much less on mobile advertising and this is a worrying trend for Facebook and other Internet brands seeing increasing shift of their service usage from desktop to mobile.