By 2020, more than six billion smartphones will be in use. Due to the affordability of smartphones and the rise of emerging markets, living standards are improving and new opportunities are being created because of these mobile devices. This also means new markets to tap for B2B firms and marketers.

Mobile commerce, otherwise known as m-commerce, has become the biggest trend in the past year alone. During the holiday season, more than 12 percent of retail sales were made with mobile devices. This isn’t necessarily surprising considering that this past week Amazon announced that 60 percent of its holiday sales came from customers using a smartphone, tablet or other type of mobile device.

Indeed, mobile advertising is here to stay, especially considering that millennials, the biggest consuming generation since the Baby Boomers, are heavy adopters of mobile technology. This age demographic is certainly embracing all kinds of ways of purchasing goods and services through their phones, whether it’s an app, PayPal, Apple Pay or bitcoins.

The mobile marketing industry generates billions of dollars each year, and all of the latest reports and studies are forecasting higher growth moving forward for the next several years.

Here are 15 statistics you need to know about mobile advertising in 2014:

1. Mobile marketing will generate $400 billion in 2014, according to the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). This dollar figure relates to the number of mobile sales as well as how much companies are willing to spend on mobile marketing initiatives.
2. Chinese businesses are investing heavily into mobile commerce. As The State of Mobile Marketing in Asia Pacific Report – a report co-authored by Econsultancy and MMA – shows, that mobile devices account for more than one-third (39 percent) of Chinese firms’ web traffic and more than one-quarter (27 percent) of ecommerce revenue is done through mobile devices.
3. BI Intelligence (via Mobile Commerce Press) reports that mobile advertising is growing at a much faster rate than any other marketing category. The reason for this is because marketers are allocating a greater percentage of their budgets to mobile marketing in order to capture this growing segment of the consuming public.
4. A substantial majority of United States consumers check their email and social media accounts on their mobile device – they also peruse their smartphones while watching television. What does this mean? Well, email marketing led to more than one-quarter (27 percent) of retail sales being made on a mobile device, says a new infographic produced by ifbyphone.
5. 2014 was the year of mobile commerce, especially during Cyber Monday. A report from eCommerce firm Skava discovered mobile shopping revenues were up 76 percent compared to 2013’s Cyber Monday. Black Friday, meanwhile, also experienced growth as sales were up 27 percent compared to 2013.
6. About half of surveyed B2B vendors sell their products through mobile, and nearly three-quarters of B2B companies are expected to completely adopt mobile marketing initiatives to boost revenues by the end of 2014.
7. Chitika Insights looked at which phones drove the most mobile Internet traffic this year in North America. The organization noted that the Apple iPhone drives more than half (52.5 percent) of all traffic, while Samsung was second with 26.4 percent. LG (5.8 percent), Motorola (3.7 percent) and HTC (2.6 percent) rounded out the top five.
8. The year 2014 continued the trend of the general public ditching the television. According to Flurry, a mobile ad network, Americans now spend more of their time on their mobile device than watching television. In the third quarter of this year, consumers spent 2 hours and 57 minutes on their smartphones and 2 hours and 48 minutes viewing the TV.
9. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki confirmed at an October conference in California that half of all YouTube traffic comes from smartphones and tablets, an important piece of news for the company as it continues to pay a lot of its attention to mobile. Wojcicki even told the audience “mobile is super important. I think it’s important for every business right now.”
10. Click-through rates for smartphones and tablets are higher than desktops, but ad position remains ever important. It was reported that the Ad 1 position is far more effective for smartphones and tablets: 39 and 36 percent, respectively, compared to the desktop’s 30 percent. With limited real estate on smartphone screens, every mobile marketer needs to be diplomatic in their advertising approach.
11. This year, brands noticed a 20 percent increase in conversion rates when contributing location data to their ad data. Location-based data is gradually becoming an effective way to engage the consumer in mobile ads.
12. Mobile ads are certainly having an effect on the customer’s decision as to whether or not it should purchase something. Mobile advertising platform NinthDecimal reported this year that 45 percent of consumers made a retail purchase after seeing a mobile advertisement on their smartphone – ditto for 19 percent of tablets.
13. After much concern that Canadians were slow to adopt mobile technology for their consumption needs, a new infographic from Catalyst has found that more than two-thirds (70 percent) searched for information on a product while in store. Furthermore, 58 percent of consumers recognized mobile search ads on search results pages, and 50 percent of them noted it helped them make a decision.
14. Canada also remains a heavy spender on mobile ads. According to EMarketer, Canadian advertisers spent approximately $1 billion on mobile ads. Moreover, spending grew 115 percent this year compared to 2013 and now accounts for less than one-quarter (23 percent) of all digital ad spending.
15. North American consumers are still split as to whether or not they support in-store mobile tracking. Although half of consumers have rejected this type of mobile advertising, there still remains a considerable number (27 percent) of consumers that would permit it if they gave consent. There were also a high number (23 percent) of indifferent customers.

With growing ubiquity of m-commerce, 2015 will likely be a stellar repeat of 2014 for mobile marketing. As companies embrace this type of technology, especially in today’s highly competitive economy, the end of 2015 will showcase greater mobile ad spending, consumer mobile spending and corporate mobile investments.

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