A recent report by US firm ABI Research has indicated that the global market for mobile marketing and advertising is expected to reach a value of $3 billion by the end of this year and up to $19 billion by 2011, if mobile search and video advertising is included.

These last two categories are seen as the big potential growth areas for the mobile marketing sector, which has repeatedly anticipated rapid growth which in reality has yet to materialise in any significant way - partly due to network availability but also due to the lack of agency experience or willingness to move into the mobile marketing sector.

This is now expected to change, with mobile video advertising seen as the big growth area. It's forecast to achieve a $9 billion market value by 2011 - nearly 50% of the total market sector and surpassing the current use of SMS for mobile marketing messages. The demographics available on mobile users can enable targeted campaigns and as specialist agencies begin to offer access to these networks, it is expected that this form of marketing will at last begin to gain a stronger foothold within the marketing budgets of many companies.