The mobile spend of UK and US businesses, which currently stands at an all-time average of £269,000, will more than double within the next 18 months, to £590,000, according to the Mobile Business Forecast 2012 report from Antenna Software.

The report – based on a poll of 1,000 CIOs and business unit leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, carried out by Vanson Bourne – found that a third of companies are planning to launch four or more mobile projects in the next 12-18 months, and working with an average of three separate mobile solutions vendors simultaneously.

As for what those projects entail – 45 per cent of companies are developing a mobile site, and 43 per cent on an app for their customers, but only 1 per cent are working on an app for their employees.

“Mobile devices are now so ubiquitous that a business without a mobile strategy is a business without a strategy,” says Jim Hemmer, CEO of Antenna. “Investment in mobile is growing at a meteoric rate, and that’s partly due to companies thinking beyond the app and beyond the idea that mobile is only critical when it comes to consumer engagement.”

All good news, but Antenna says frustrations around the cost, complexity, management and timescale of mobile projects are growing. 45 per cent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the speed at which the mobile projects they commission get to market, and 42 per cent said they were frequently dissatisfied with the eventual cost of the solutions deployed.