In a direct attack on
Chief Executive
By building an advertising system into its products, Jobs said, Apple is hoping to tap into a nascent but potentially lucrative market: the growing number of consumers who are picking up a cell phone when they want to access the Internet.
Analysts predict that within five years, more users will access the Internet from mobile devices than personal computers, which could translate into billions of dollars in sales of phones, software and services.
Spending on mobile advertising in the U.S. last year was about
That has led to Apple and
What such marketing campaigns will look like, or how they will let people interact with media-rich ads, is still in the early stages. At Apple headquarters in
Even before the launch of iAd, Apple had a substantial head start in the mobile marketplace: The company sold more than 85 million iPhones and iPod Touch players in the last three years. That success has attracted an army of software developers, who have built 185,000 applications for Apple’s hand-held devices.
Users have downloaded 4 billion applications since the earliest became available in 2008, Jobs said.
“”Search is not happening on phones,”” Jobs said, in a direct jab at
Analysts say
Along with the iPad tablet computer Apple released Saturday — it has sold 450,000 units so far — the company is now hoping to offer a broader technical palette to advertisers. In turn, they would be able to design larger, more colorful ads that users can interact with.
Yet
But the pending
If regulators greenlight
A Federal Trade Commission spokesman declined to comment Wednesday.
However, the investigation is ramping up, according to media reports. On Tuesday, U.S. Sen.
Determining whether the acquisition could harm competition in such a nascent market, however, could be difficult, said
AdMob and
Apple’s iAd network could help assuage regulators’ concerns, Weide said.
“”It makes the argument more credible that there is a healthy level of competition,”” he said.