Leading industry executives have warned that the mobile advertising market is some years away from maturity despite recent studies predicting strong growth over the next few years. Speakers at this week’s Reuters Technology, Media and Telecoms summit suggested that the market was still at an experimental stage with many operators and brands unsure about how to engage customers with mobile advertising. “It will be slow, it will take time but it will be there,” Maurice Levy, chairman and chief executive of advertising group Publicis, told the summit, reports Reuters. Other speakers, including T-Mobile chief executive Hamid Akhavan, hinted that the market is being hampered by the many different handsets available. Akhavan added that a cooperative strategy would likely be the only way to success, but warned that although operators were starting to discuss this, it is not currently a top priority.

Despite such reported stumbling blocks, research groups are suggesting a buoyant market over the next few years. A report this week by Juniper Research forecasts that total spending on mobile advertising will reach US$1.3 billion this year rising to US$7.6 billion in 2013, with mobile search advertising accounting for a sizable proportion (US$2 billion) of this by 2013. The study suggested that spending on mobile advertising will be highest in the Far East/China region, followed by Western Europe and North America.