Author: Denny

The global earnings from smartphone based ads is increasing at a very rapid rate.

A recent report has indicated that the global revenue from mobile advertising, last year, increased by a tremendous 64.8 percent, which is a direct reflection of other trends relating to smartphones.

The region in which the fastest revenue growth was experienced was in North America, at 76.8 percent.

That said, mobile advertising appeared to experience a rapid growth rate worldwide. Other regions all experienced increases in revenues that were more than 50 percent. The form of mobile marketing that saw the highest rate of growth in terms of its revenues was mobile display ads. That category increased its revenues by 88.1 percent, year over year. It managed to surpass mobile search as the dominant category in the smartphone based advertising segment. This data was reported by the Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), as well as IAB Europe, and HIS Technology.

The report found that global mobile advertising revenues reached the $31.9 billion mark, last year.

That revenue represents an increase of 65 percent. Of that, North America made up 44.9 percent of the revenues.

When looking at the individual categories of mobile ads, mobile search lost its first place status to mobile display, which is now the biggest segment. Mobile display saw a growth rate of more than 88 percent.

According to the senior vice president of IAB, Anna Bager, who is also the general manager for the IAB Mobile Marketing Center and Digital Video Centers of Excellence, “Mobile devices are at the center of consumers’ lives across the globe and these numbers reflect brands’ increasing recognition that this medium holds great power. Now is the time for the industry to coalesce on standards and guidelines to build even more momentum for mobile marketing around the world.”

It is more than clear that mobile advertising is growing at an exceptional rate, as marketers, brands, and businesses alike begin to discover that the time in which this category can be considered a luxury or a novelty has passed. Mobile-geddon has shown that there is no way to continue to deny that advertising over smartphones and tablets has become a vital part of marketing.

New mobile payments apps are preparing for the launch of the iPhone’s own option.

As Apple Pay is now on its way to Canadian consumers, the UGO mobile wallet is getting itself ready to deal with a market that will have a much larger amount of stiff competition to face.

The mobile wallet was created by UGO Mobile Solutions LP, with the backing of two Canadian banks.

That mobile wallet was first launched in December, and has managed to accumulate 50,000 users since that time, but it is now facing a considerable threat as Apple Pay heads out of the United States and into some additional countries around the world. Users of UGO are able to complete mobile payments transactions through the credit cards that have been issued by either Toronto Dominion Bank or President’s Choice Financial. This allows users to pay for purchases by tapping their NFC enabled smartphones against wireless terminals installed at retail checkout counters. That app also supports the loyalty cards of those retailers.

Now, UGO and other mobile wallets are getting ready to have to contend with Apple Pay, a very large entry.

UGO isn’t alone in facing the Apple mobile payments threat as it enters the Canadian space. Other local players such as Suretap – a mobile wallet created by Rogers Communications Inc, one of the largest wireless carriers in the country – is also finding itself preparing for the change in the competition.

Apple has already sent its mobile payments service into the United Kingdom and is going to take that service into a number of other countries, including Canada, before the end of the year. While many customers are interested in seeing their iPhone 6’s and 6 Plus’s in action at the checkout counter, it has yet to be known exactly how much interest there is in this market space among Canadians.

UGO is geared up to sign up as many active users as it can before the arrival of Apple Pay. Alec Morley, its chief executive officer, explained that the company is currently on track to serve 100,000 unique users by the end of the year, who will be using over 250,000 cards to pay for their purchases through this service.