As the financial slowdown forces companies to cut their advertising spend, they are now shifting focus from advertising on traditional media to mobile advertising. This has come as the next affordable and personal medium to reach out to consumers in the current downturn, say industry players.

Said Vishwadeep Bajaj, co-founder and CEO, ValueFirst, ?Mobile advertising market in India currently is about Rs 40-50 crore and is expected to reach Rs 500 crore in the next 2-3 years.?

Interestingly, the trend is moving away from the plain vanilla mobile advertisements to business communications. Mobile coupons have started picking up in India after advertisers began understanding it as a direct response vehicle to reach out to customers. Advertising companies sending out barcodes is being also observed as a popular vehicle to promote the brands.

Experts believe that mobile phone is no longer seen as a gadget for personal use but it is a profound tool that channel marketers are beginning to recognise as a serious long-term advertising strategy. However, the biggest concern for mobile ad is the lack of budget by the advertisers, lack of understanding of this new media by the ad agencies and finally a clear cut business plan in the ad eco system. ?Mobile advertising has comes under new media advertising in India and consists of just 2% of the total advertising budget in the country,? said Debasis Chatterji, CEO, Netxcell.

According to experts, mobile advertising in India will take a while to start generating significant revenues for the telecom operators. Currently, operators typically retain the lion?s share of around 60% revenues, followed by 15-25% for content aggregators and 10-15% for content creators. According to Mobile Advertising Association, mobile advertising spend in 2008 was about Rs 20 crore. And globally mobile advertising accounts for mere 1% of the total advertising spent.

Juniper Research estimates the total mobile ad spend globally will rise approximately from Rs 6,370 crores in 2008 to more than Rs 37,240 in 2013.