Juniper predicts mobile games ad spend will rise to $894 million by 2015

Thanks to the rise of the freemium model, generally bullish UK research firm Juniper believes overall ad spend on mobile games is set to rise more than tenfold over the course of the next five years.

Detailed in the firm's latest white paper focusing on business models in the mobile games industry, Juniper states that by 2015, ad spend will hit $894 million up from its current annual tally of $87 million.

It's a surge that will be aided by the industry's new found ability to sell ad spots to the big corporations a trend that owes much to the launch of iAd, report author Daniel Ashdown concludes, as well as the release of popular titles on free app marketplaces.

Juniper recently also predicted "Mobile Games Revenues to Surpass $11 Billion Globally by 2015 as In-Game Purchases Overtake Those of Pay-per-Download", a claim we were less than certain about.

Indeed, numbers from EA Mobile suggested Juniper and fellow futurists Gartner were wildly off the mark. 

Birdy bounce

"Angry Birds has been a huge hit over the last year on the iPhone since its launch, but arguably its relative impact, in terms of downloads, has been bigger on Getjar and, more recently, on Android Market, as a result of offering the game free with ads," says Ashdown.

"Users get a great game for free, but advertisers get significant product/brand exposure. The same is true of mobile games as marketing tools."

However, while ad spend is set to rise at a faster rate than end user revenues, Juniper claims the latter model will remain the prevalent model, with returns from paid apps and in-game purchases still be higher than revenue generated from advertising.

Juniper's full findings can be downloaded for £2,500 from the firm's website.