Mobile Advertising - A contrarian view

Mobile advertising has recently been talked up by both mobile operators and media companies, with some analysts estimating that it could be worth more than $11 billion by 2011, or over one third of the current internet advertising market

The reality, however, is that the current market is very small (less than US$120 million globally), with even this supported heavily by experimental campaigns, and it cannot grow significantly without mobile browsing increasing dramatically, whereas adoption is currently stable or even shrinking in some markets.

The economics of advertising generally depend on a mass market of consumers spending hours a day viewing or listening to a medium, not occasional usage by a hard-core group of techies, and unless the mobile internet can be brought to the masses mobile advertising will remain very niche.

Any comments on this?