Mobile Advertising is all set to touch INR 144 crores by 2013. As of March’12, the market is pegged at INR 105 crores, In an interaction with TelecomTiger, Atul Satija, VP & Managing Director, Asia Pacific Inmobi, speaks about the growth of mobile advertising in India and the company’s future plans

Q. How do you see the growth of mobile Advertising in India?

A. Mobile advertising has come a long way and its future is brilliant. Adoption of smartphones and tablets in India will drive its reach tremendously. Large brands are increasingly dedicating bigger portions of their digital advertising budgets to mobile as there is a better understanding of the platform and its benefits. In a Media Consumption survey conducted by us, the Mobile consistently scored higher than other medium across a variety of activities for mobile Internet users in India. The results underline the sweeping changes taking place in media consumption habits across the world, more so in India. Businesses that will succeed in the next 3-5 years will be the ones that are able to fully comprehend the power of the medium and harness its potential.

Q. Do you feel that the prevailing regulatory uncertainty in India will affect the mobile advertising market?

A. InMobi is a display ad network for mobile internet. Consumers, as they browse, content are presented ads on the InMobi ad network. So, from InMobi’s perspective, there would be no impact on its business

Q. 3G and 4G penetration in India has not been as speedy as in other developed countries. Will that be a challenge for you?

A. The government is taking steps to roll out 3G in India and going by the popular demand, we should have a smooth transition to 4G also.

Q. Bharti Airtel has recently entered mobile advertising segment. Do you feel the market will get crowded and completion stiffer in near future?

A. No Comments.

Q. What are your future Plans?

A. We plan to scale up the business across two dimensions simultaneously-innovation in product and technology and geography dimension. Digital marketing is all about a strong platform. Inefficiencies are best solved with good technology. If we can provide the right technology and tools for the mobile ecosystem to create higher monetization’s, it will naturally lead to higher yields. To achieve this, we will simply have to put smart engineers to build the technology solutions.

Mobile advertising is a very global business. Everyone today has a cellphone. That’s vastly different from PC business, where the utilizations is concentrated in the developed markets. We make sure we are a global solution and hence we provide ways of mobile advertising in all parts of the globe.