Mobile App Inventory On Track To Match Online Display Ad Spend By Year-End

Mobile app analytics firm Flurry released a new report comparing the U.S. mobile app inventory to traditional Internet display advertising spend, and the results are impressive. According to data pulled from over 100,000 mobile apps on Flurry’s network, app inventory is poised to absorb the equivalent of the U.S. online display ad spend by the end of 2011, says the firm, assuming current trends continue.

The best way to visualize this trend, is with the chart Flurry provides.

You can see that, over the past 2 years, “mobile app inventory has grown so aggressively that it can now meet the demand of a mature, 15-year-old form of online advertising,” the analytics firm says.

To arrive at these numbers, Flurry tracks the average number of ads shown per session, which was 4.3. The average application session time is 4.2 minutes. For comparison purposes, the average website session length is under 1 minute. Flurry then looked at the number of sessions across its network. The company tracks around 20% of all sessions in the market, so it grew the numbers to come up with a market size and positioned that data against the net spend on display advertising in the U.S.

It also assumed a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) of $2.50 for mobile app inventory, which the firm says is “conservative.”

Flurry says the market is growing so quickly because of smartphone, publisher and session use growth as well as an increasing number of publishers integrating ads within their apps. This latter item could also be related to the increasing market share of Android and its predominately ad-supported app ecosystem, although Flurry doesn’t mention that particular factor in the report.

Mobile Ads Target Attractive Demographic

Using U.S. Census Bureau data, Flurry also found that the smartphone user demographic was attractive to advertisers, thanks to higher household income levels and educational achievement levels. App users are more likely to be younger and trend slightly more female, too.