Micro-blogging site Twitter is on course to make more money from mobile ads than Facebook for 2012, according to new research.
The study, from eMarketer, projected revenues of $130m in mobile advertising revenues for 2012.
By contrast Facebook expects to make just $73m on mobile for the year, the study found.
The numbers reflect the big challenge facing Facebook in the mobile space – that $72m figure is very small given its estimated 900m global user base.
Of course, Facebook is trying to tackle the problem of advertising on mobile without being too intrusive with its users.
Earlier this year, it transferred its ‘Sponsored Stories in the News Feed’ idea from online to mobile.
Twitter’s figures are still a long way behind online monoliths such as Google, which saw revenues of $750m from its mobile users in the US last year.
Google bought ad network AdMob for $750m in 2010 and integrated the latter to the extent that its grossed $1,423.1 million in mobile ad revenue for 2012.
With that figure, eMarketer predicts Google will take up almost 55% of the total mobile advertising market in the US.
eMarketer seems confident that the big social networks will make a success of mobile advertising. It reckons, by 2014, Facebook will earn $629.4 million compared to $444.1 million by Twitter.
Facebook had 543 million mobile users as of June 30th, 2012 – around six in ten of the firm’s 955m total monthly active users.
