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While smartphone growth may be reaching saturation point in some developed markets, the services that people are using on the devices continue to expand, and that is having a direct impact on the growth of mobile advertising. Globally, the mobile ads market brought in revenues of $8.9 billion in 2012 — a rise of nearly 83% on 2011′s revenues of $5.3 billion, according to figures out today of the IAB and IHS. But while we have seen a push towards more interactive and media-rich, ad-tech fuelled innovations in the medium, search remains the biggest of all ad formats, accounting for over half of all revenues at 52.8%, or $4.7 billion. And while the analysts did not spell it out, that means that Google, the worldwide leader in both search and in smartphones with its Android platform, remains on top.

Display ads accounted for 38.7% of all mobile ad revenues while messaging continues its decline and now accounts for just 8.5% — before the rise of the mobile Internet and apps usage, messaging-based ads were by far and away the most popular of formats.

The rise of mobile ads revenue comes from a perfect storm of a couple of forces. In addition to growing smartphone penetration — with markets like the U.S., UK and others in Europe now tipped into smartphone majorities — there is also the fact that people are actually using them more than ever before, for an ever-wider range of uses. At the same time, those who produce content for mobile devices continue to see an increasing push from consumers for “free” content that they do not need to pay for, which in turn often gets supported instead by advertising.

At the same time, the IAB points out that there is a growing trend for more consolidated and savvy investing on the part of media buyers, who are following where users are going and making large ad buys across different networks and different platforms.

“Mobile is coming into its own as a powerhouse advertising medium,” says Anna Bager, Vice President and General Manager, Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, U.S. IAB, in a statement. “Today’s advertising is happening in a world where ad campaigns can be planned and bought across global networks on multiple media, but the massive and continuing acceleration of mobile’s international impact provides new and exciting frontiers for content and communication.”

In terms of geographical breakdown, the biggest-growing markets continue to be those where mobile internet usage is the strongest: revenues in the U.S. rose 111% and Western Europe 91%. Interestingly, however, when it comes to the single-biggest region for mobile ads, it’s Asia Pacific — which includes the biggest smartphone market in the world, China — that is the biggest:

You can read the full report here. More to come.