Twitter is making far greater inroads into the mobile advertising market than Facebook, and will earn more than double from the medium, according to a new sector analysis.
A report by market research group eMarketer in the US, predicts Twitter will earn $129.7m from mobile advertising this year in the States alone, compared to Facebook’s $72.7m.
The position will change next year, however, with Facebook projected to earn $387m and Twitter $272.6m.
But the report exposes just how hard Facebook will have to work to play catch-up in the mobile market – seen by many as yet another reason for the social network site’s woes.
Google, for instance, which generates mobile revenues from both search advertising and banners in apps, is predicted to see US sales of $1.4bn in 2012 and $3.6bn in 2014.
By 2016, the US mobile advertising market will be worth $12bn, says the study. Worldwide Twitter has 500m users; Facebook has more than 900m.
And Twitter may also be able to generate more money from each user than Facebook, despite the latter’s far larger ad sales on PCs. Facebook cannot show as many ads as Twitter, whose “promoted tweets” and other ad formats are seen as integrating more seamlessly into its apps.
Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer, said: “Twitter is built from the ground up to be very easy to use on mobile devices. It makes sense that advertising is a better fit. For Facebook, it’s been a learning experience.”
