New Zealand’s spend on mobile adverts continues to increase, with online advertising in general forecast to reach $400m by 2013.

An Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) survey shows a rise of 16% for online advertising spend across the second quarter, with mobile advert expenditure increasing over 150% on last year.

IAB says the total spend reached $91.42m, up from $79.21m in the first quarter, while mobile ads amounted to $650,000, 156% higher than last year’s period.

“This is a significant sign of growth for the Mobile Advertising Industry in NZ,” says Bridget Gallen, commerce manager, Vodafone.

“While the addition of search in this first half year number has clearly provided a boost to the spend figure as well as providing a more accurate reflection of true Mobile Advertising spend, a 156.41% normalised growth figure is a considerable level of growth for the industry.

“It is likely this growth is contributable to the increase in specialist Mobile Media companies new to the NZ market, a rapid rise in smartphone penetration (now around 40% and expected to be over 50% by year end), and a rise in NZ based Apps and publisher sites, making mobile a more attractive media channel to marketers.

“While Mobile Ad spends in NZ is well below what it is in other markets, we anticipate that this recent growth should continue as it has in these other markets where mobile is now a significant proportion of the overall digital media spend.

“Spend in NZ has been less than 1% of Online, but in the UK and US is more than 4% and expected to rise to 15% in the next few years."

IAB New Zealand general manager Alisa Higgins believes ‘online adverting spend is well on its way to reach the $400 million mark at the end of this year. We are seeing considerable growth in mobile expenditure with the first half of 2012 delivering the total amount spent in 2011.”