Some $5.3 billion was spent on mobile digital advertising in 2011, a survey showed Wednesday in the first industry-sponsored measure of what is expected to be a booming market.

The survey by the Interactive Advertising Bureau with its IAB Europe affiliate and the research firm IHS found the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 35.9 percent of global revenues, followed by North America with 31.4 percent and Europe 25.9 percent.

Latin America tallied 3.5 percent and the Middle East and Africa 3.2 percent, the survey found.

More than half of the revenues ($3.3 billion) were search-related, while $1.5 billion was from display ads and $536 million from messaging.

"As mobile accelerates its global footprint, it is vital that we measure the worldwide and regional opportunities for advertisers," said Anna Bager, vice president of the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence.

Alain Heureux, president and chief executive of IAB Europe, said, "Hyper-personal and always-on, mobile has a tremendous potential as an advertising medium. We are recognizing the need for accurate and comprehensive data to support and provide evidence for its future growth."

Google buys mobile document maker Quickoffice
San Francisco (AFP) June 5, 2012 - Google on Tuesday said it had acquired the software firm Quickoffice, which allows users to create and edit documents on mobile devices.

The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, helps Google compete against Microsoft and others in the mobile space with the software allowing users to view, edit and create documents compatible with Microsoft formats such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

"We worked very hard to build Quickoffice as a user friendly, seamless and yet powerful way to view, edit, sync and share documents anywhere, anytime. It's been a very humbling experience to see this vision embraced by our users," Quickoffice co-founder Alan Masarek said. "Now, we are ushering in a new chapter with Google."

Alan Warren, Google's engineering director, called Quickoffice "a leader in office productivity solutions."

"Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we'll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite," Warren said on the Google blog.