LONDON: The vast majority (91%) of marketers across EMEA plan to increase their mobile budgets over the next 12 months, with almost half (45%) expecting that growth to exceed 25%, a new industry survey has revealed.

For its inaugural "State of the Industry: Mobile Marketing in EMEA" report, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) worked in partnership with Warc to poll 378 marketing and advertising professionals from 42 markets across the region.

As a snapshot of the current state of thinking about mobile marketing among industry practitioners, the survey also revealed their views about the most significant trends as well as the main barriers holding back mobile from further growth.

Almost two-thirds (62%) of marketers in the region said they currently allocate less than 10% of their budget to mobile, the report found, but more than a quarter (28%) spend between 11% and 25%, while another 10% spend more than 26%.

And they expressed keen interest in mobile video and location-based data because these two formats will be used over the coming year by 65% and 56% respectively.

Respondents also identified telecoms, travel, drink, retail and finance as the most innovative categories for mobile marketing, and close to half expected mobile wallet, virtual reality and augmented reality to gain prominence over the next five years.

When asked about the most significant consumer trends affecting mobile strategy today, around three-quarters (74%) cited multi-screening, while mobile payments (50%) and mobile video consumption (47%) also rated high in importance.

Turning to the greatest barriers to the growth of mobile marketing in the region, EMEA marketers highlighted consumer privacy concerns (36%), followed by inconsistent metrics (34%) and lack of skills (28%).

They also revealed that, when it comes to cross-channel campaigns, they most frequently use social platforms in tandem with mobile marketing activities, and this is particularly true of Facebook (97%), YouTube (75%), Instagram (70%) and Twitter (68%).

Commenting on the findings from the MMA and Warc, David Tiltman, Head of Content at Warc, observed that marketers are making "the necessary investments to realise mobile's potential".

"The definition of 'mobile marketing' continues to expand – and the strong interest in mobile video and location-based data underlines marketers' eagerness to test emerging formats and technologies," he said.

Data sourced from MMA, Warc