Advertisers cautious of move to mobile

Internet users may be flocking to mobile devices, but profits have been scarce as many advertisers remain wary of the new medium.

Mobile internet use accounted for 10.1 per cent of media use in the US at the end of last year but attracted only 0.9 per cent of the total money spent on advertising, according to US research firm eMarketer. Pandora, which sees 70 per cent of its use on mobile but gets only a third of the advertising yields there compared with what it receives on the web, is one of many advertising-based internet companies to suffer. This makes the emergence of the mobile internet a replay of the Dotcom era, claim Joe Kennedy, chief executive of Pandora, and other executives: advertisers will inevitably follow, once the medium matures.