The collective mobile advertising market across the Euro7 countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain) will surpass the $1bn (£616m) landmark this year. Further, as smartphone proliferation increases and mobile video audiences grow, this is expected to increase and generate close to $4bn by 2016.

Thats the conclusion of a a new piece of research from Adsmobi and mobileSQUARED. The study found that mobile video stands to become the most powerful form of advertising across the Euro7 markets by 2016. It found that 60 – 79 per cent of smartphone users in the Euro7 are now using their mobile devices to watch video-based services, and the current video audience of 152m is primed to rapidly expand to beyond 274m in the next four years.

“By the end of 2012 it is estimated that over 100m smartphone users will belong to the “gigabyte club” (consuming over 1 GB data per month), while the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the world’s population in 2012, so the potential for brands to engage via mobile video is huge,” said Adsmobi MD, Ramy Yared. “From an advertiser’s perspective – and especially with the move towards 4G services – it means that rich media campaigns will be able to be served to a mass market audience of smartphone users. What’s more, a walled garden campaign – for the OS platform for example – would no longer be considered inconsequential due to the volume of iOS and Android users now present in the Euro7.”

Other key findings of the report include:

• In 2012, the UK maintained its position as Europe’s biggest mobile advertising market, accounting for 32 per cent of total spend; followed by Germany (22 per cent) and France (16 per cent)
• By 2016, the UK will represent 26 per cent with Germany staying on 22 per cent and France increasing its share to 19 per cent
• By the end of 2012, there will be almost 44m iPhone users across the Euro7. This number is set to rise to 63.4m by 2016 – equivalent to the size of the UK population.
• In 2011, global mobile data traffic more than doubled for the fourth successive year, with traffic totaling 597 petabytes per month. This is over eight times greater than total global internet traffic in 2000
• Across the Euro7, the UK has the highest smartphone penetration; 51 per cent in 2012, increasing to 80 per cent by 2016. France, Germany and Netherlands all have smartphone penetration in the low-40 per cent, but this is expected to jump to 61 per cent, 78 per cent and 68 per cent respectively by 2016.

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