In the middle of various mixed reports about the state of mobile media in the U.S., MediaPost releases a bright one. North American and European ad revenue will surpass $5 billion in 2012--up from an estimated $106.8 million at the end of 2007, according to Opus Research. The firm predicts predicts the North American market will account for $2.3 billion of the total, and will enjoy an annual growth rate of 116%.

"The mobile market is quickly evolving," says Greg Sterling, senior analyst of the Local Mobile Search program at Opus, in the article. "We're not just talking about competition among the major search and portal providers like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, but carriers and OEMs like Nokia, which bought Navteq for $8.1 billion, and mobile ad network Enpocket."

The traditional maxim still holds: with such a large, installed user base, cell phone advertising is the obvious next major step in marketing. But consumers have to want mobile media, in its various forms, for that side to take off. Complicated service pricing, technological hurdles, and that most annoying of issues--the two inch cell phone screen--all conspire against it.

Mobile Ad Revenue To Climb To $5B By 2012: Opus [MediaPost]