Mobile advertisements now reach an audience almost double that reached in 2013.
That's according to the Citrix Mobile Analytics Report for the first quarter of 2014. The report notes that even with such growth, mobile ads generate less than 2% of a subscriber's daily mobile data volume and only one in 20 subscribers is currently served video ads.
Citrix projects dramatic growth in the number of subscribers touched by video ads and the data volume attributable to video ads. This growth will be driven, in part, by such dynamics as auto-play for video ads, as introduced by Facebook in December 2013.
Interestingly, 59% of Citrix consumer survey respondents believe that mobile ads do not count towards their monthly data quota.
The study discovered that health apps are one of the fastest-growing mobile application categories. According to the consumer survey, 52% are using their mobile health apps more now, as compared to when it was first downloaded.
Within the health category, the top 10 most popular by subscriber usage are related to fitness and running, weight loss and nutrition, and women's health. With the rise of wearable devices such as FitBit, Nike+ and Pebble, Citrix predicts an increasing impact of health apps on overall network data traffic as these devices integrate more fitness and mobile health apps into their functionality.
Citrix believes that Twitter's introduction of video sharing site Vine last year and the integration of video into Facebook's Instagram have driven a dramatic increase in social video sharing. As a consequence, it explains, the data content on social networks now consists of 32% video, while images contribute 63% and text contributes 5%.
With regards to its contribution to subscribers' daily mobile data volume, social networking consumes 8% on average, although this percentage fluctuates significantly by operator and region, the study found.
For example, social network data traffic in Europe and the US is responsible for 18% and 16%, respectively, of all data volume. In contrast, only 4% of overall data traffic is attributable to popular social networking sites in the Asia-Pacific region.
"The Mobile Analytics Report serves, in part, as an early warning system for mobile operators' network, marketing and customer care organisations, providing insight into potential network pitfalls and opportunities to deliver exceptional subscriber experiences," says Mark Davis, senior director of product marketing, Service Provider Platforms at Citrix.
"In many regions, consumers now expect wired-like performance on their mobile device and, when they don't get that performance; their frustration is directed at the operator. But a great subscriber experience is just the start. Operators looking to transform their businesses need to understand data usage such as that detailed in the report, and find ways to translate that understanding into incremental revenue."
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