Mobile marketing around the world was worth $5.3 billion last year

One third of that spending was in the Asia-Pacific region.

Findings from an Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) analysis has shown that the worldwide mobile marketing spending last year was $5.3 billion

31.4 percent ($1.7 billion) was spent on advertising in North America.

The complete study was conducted by the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, in conjunction with the HIS Screen Digest, and the IAB Europe. The purpose of the research was to try to determine how big the smartphone and tablet advertising marketplace truly was, both globally, as well as in the various regions around the world.

The Asia-Pacific region had the largest amount of spending, at almost 36 percent of the overall market ($1.9 billion).

The Asia-Pacific region also generated the largest amount of revenues, with a 35.9 percent share. North America and Europe came in second, at 25.9 percent each. The Middle East, Latin America, and Africa were well behind the rest of the world, having only a combined 6.7 percent.

The largest revenue generator appeared to be the search mobile marketing segment, as it brought in 62 percent of the global revenues. The only place where text messages (SMS) beat out search was in Latin America. Following search was display, which made up 30 percent of the total revenues, and in last place (other than in Latin America) was text messaging, which generated 10 percent of the overall revenue dollars.

According to the CEO and president of IAB Europe, Alain Heureux, “Mobile has a tremendous potential as an advertising medium.” He also added that “This is not just a local, or even European affair. As many mobile campaigns are played out in a global ecosystem, the market we have to size spans across borders.”

Together, Europe and North America made up a 57.3 percent share of the total amount that was spent on mobile marketing, for a total of more than $3 billion. In North America, $811 million was spent on mobile search, $572 was used for display advertising, and $295 was spent for SMS message ads. There was $570 million more spent on search techniques in the Asia-Pacific region.