Report: Mobile Coupons Catching On

EMarketer is out with a new report that claims 1 in 10 mobile users are redeeming coupons. That’s not a lot but for all the reasons we explored in our recent mobile deals report, it’s projected to grow quickly. EMarketer pegs it at 17 percent by 2013.

In absolute numbers, this adds up to 20 million U.S. adults who will redeem mobile coupons this year. That includes deals or promotions distributed by email, SMS, QR codes, mobile Web and apps. As expected, adoption skews higher among smartphone users at about 20 percent.

But as we’ve argued, gating factors to pervasive mobile deals won’t be users but rather longstanding POS redemption challenges and distribution. EMarketer’s figures appear to have the right inputs and assumptions, but we’ll be taking a closer quantitative look at this space ourselves.

Our mobile ad revenue forecast doesn’t include coupons and deals because they aren’t an ad buy (more of a marketing or promotional expense). But we hope to branch out into this area of forecasting in a standalone data set that examines the unique opportunity. Stay tuned.