Apple’s iAd: First European Brands To Be Named This Week

Six months after launch, some more international expansion for Apple’s iAd advertising platform. This week, Apple is reportedly set to announce its first European partners for iAd. The news follows on the heels of last week’s deal to take iAds to Japan, in partnership with Japanese agency Dentsu.

The European launch of iAd has not come without hiccups. The report notes that Apple had “twice delayed” the iAd launch in recent weeks. And it has been willing to bend on its $1 million minimum campaign spend rule in order to attract top brands to the platform. Two or three campaigns are likely to run in early December, but most will not go live until early next year, it says.

According to analysts at mobileSQUARED, the ‘big five’ European mobile markets of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK will together generate a combined €88 million ($120 million) in revenues from mobile advertising in 2010. That’s a league behind Japan, which is expected to have some $1 billion in mobile advertising revenues; and the U.S. market, which it says is around one-third the size of Japan’s (analysts at Smaato put the U.S. figure somewhat higher, at nearly $800 million).

Still, signing on some European brands would still be a significant move for Apple, not least to demonstrate that the iAd platform is continuing to gain momentum.

iAd, which went live nearly six months ago, has been the relative slow burner in Apple’s wireless business. After Apple boasted it had already booked some $60 million in iAd advertising at launch, it then went a little quiet, giving iAd only a passing mention in its last quarterly presentation.

That stands in contrast to the blazing success of Apple’s devices. Apple says the iPhone sold “well over three million” devices in its first three weeks of launch this past summer.