Everyone likes witnessing a good fight once in a while. But even when there is actually no quarrel between Google and Apple, research projected that Apple’s market capitalization is now ahead of Google.
According to recent projections, Apple may be gaining share in the United States’ mobile advertising market this year, which means bad news for Google and Microsoft. The early estimates of the IDC revealed that Apple will end the year with 21 percent of the market, while Google’s share will drop to 21 percent from 27 percent last year. Microsoft on the other hand will suffer the worse effects, with advertising shares dropping from 10 percent down to 7 percent.
The big three have been upgrading ad software in the past couple of years and have been buying businesses to get a larger chunk of mobile advertising. The reason why the three have been determined to get a hold of the mobile advertising field is because according to IDC, the mobile advertising industry currently has the biggest potential when it comes to sales – with the possibility of doubling in the United States alone, to almost $500 million by the end of 2010.
Apple did not get involved in selling mobile ads last year. But in January this year, Steve Hobs bought Quattro Wireless, which then had 9 percent of the mobile advertising market shares in 2009. After the acquisition, Apple then started the iAd network in July. According to experts, Apple’s acquisition of Quattro, paired with the launch of iAd by Steve Jobs redefined the whole concept of mobile advertising.
It is highly possible, according to analysts, that it is the Apple’s push to be aggressive in mobile advertising that lead to the market share declines of its rivals. Since June, the number of brands that have agreed to run ads through Apple’s iAd network has increased twice as much, the spokeswoman of Apple revealed last week.
Aside from Google and Microsoft, Yahoo’s share in mobile ads will also plummet into a painful 9 percent, from 12 percent last year. And Finland based Nokia will further sinks into a decline of 2 percent, from 5 percent, according to IDC.
While Apple’s iAd network might be growing fast as Steve Jobs had hoped, Apple is still not keeping its hopes up. Truly, iAd will still need to add more features and offer more flexibility (such as the ability for advertisers to target specific devices) in order to hasten the growth of iAd.
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