Chennai: Seeing a big value in the expanding Indian mobile market, estimated to 500 million subscribers by the year 2010, service providers, market research firms and independent companies in India are focusing on mobile advertising, an estimated one billion industry, globally with a three billion subscriber base.

The Economic Times reported that the Indian market for mobile advertising is estimated to grow from $5 million to $6.25 million by March 2008. It was estimated to be a mere $1.5 million about six months ago. Reliance Communications, a leading CDMA service provider and a pioneer of mobile advertising in the country, has effectively offered mobile advertising solutions for more than 20 clients over the past four years. Starting off with LG during World Cup Cricket in 2003, it has since handled Cadbury's, Coke, Maruti, Hyundai and even financial brands like ICICI, Kotak and HDFC. "With the mobile handset population poised to top 500 million in India by 2010, it has become a huge and vibrant communication platform, which no brand marketer can ignore," said Mahesh Prasad, President - Applications & Solutions, Reliance Communication.

Kaybase, a Chennai-based emerging market research organization, says that advertising medium is a more effective communication stream. Kaybase, through critical incident track, made use of the very high mobile penetration in the country, and the relatively non-intrusive nature of SMS. "It is a tool to conduct ongoing contact audit of the client's services. Its chief advantage is the low cost and the real-time reporting features," says R Ashok, Director, Kaybase.

Even as companies chalk out different plans to effectively tap this medium, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and NEA Indo-U.S. ventures jointly invested about $2 million in mGinger, a Bangalore-based startup with specific focus on mobile advertising. MGinger runs a permission-based mobile advertisement service, whereby mobile users are paid to receive ads on their mobile.