The local market for mobile advertisement nearly doubled year-on-year in 2013, a government report showed Tuesday, amid the soaring number of smartphone users in the country.

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said the size of South Korea’s mobile advertising market was estimated at 416 billion won (US$392 million) last year, a leap from the 215.9 billion won (US$202.5 million) in 2012.

Last year’s figure accounted for 4 percent of the entire advertisement market in the country, a twofold growth from 2 percent tallied a year earlier. The biggest market was in display ads, including banners or texts on web pages and mobile applications on portable devices, which came to 200 billion won (US$187.6 million) in 2013. It was trailed by search-based adverts at 157.4 billion won (US$147.6 million). The market for compensated advertisements, which provide incentives to users viewing such contents, logged 58.1 billion won (US$54.5 million). This is the first time for the ministry to track data on the different formats of mobile advertisement.

For 2014, the ministry said the local market for mobile advertisements is expected to reach 619 billion won (US$581 million), with display ads taking up 294 billion won (US$276 million) and search-based adverts grasping 248 billion won (US$232.6 million).

A ministry survey indicated that people were becoming more receptive toward mobile ads. A 2013 poll of 2,000 users aged between 15 and 63 showed 50.6 percent were not pleased with them, lower than 59.7 percent in 2012. Of those who were critical of the ad format, 33.6 percent disapproved of the contents of advertisement, while 29.1 percent cited interference in using applications.

Written by Heeseung Lee (2014)