Apple announced this week that it has already secured $60 million dollars in iAd campaigns, with the likes of Nissan, Best Buy and Disney being some of the initial brands to try out the new mobile ad platform. Some commnetators think Jobs lost the run of himself when he predicted that Apple would own half the US mobile ad market by 2011. The mobile ad market in the US is currently about $3.8 billion dollars - with SMS accounting for the bulk of that at $3.2 billion dollars. Mobile ad display only generates about $253 million dollars. It's likely that Jobs was referring to this ad market segment when preaching his message to the Apple faithful. It is clear from this confident prediction that Apple is looking to lock down its platform very soon.

There have been two major developments in the past six months that suggest a more aggressive move into the ad display market by the company: first, the banning of location based advertising on new apps; and second, the big marquee purchase of Quattro, which serves as the engine for the new iAd offering. Apple has been looking to turn the screws on another potential lucrative revenue stream. It says it can do mobile advertising on the iPhone better than anyone else. Will they own the mobile display ad market by better innovation? Possibly not. I suspect it will engineer market dominance by kicking off all the ad nets currently servicing the iPhone app eco-system. Expect all this to happen to meet Steve's expectations. It's easy when you own the walled garden. [SmartCompany]