South Korea’s mobile advertising market nearly tripled last year in line with the growing presence of smartphones and high-speed Internet in the country, a report showed Wednesday.

The country’s mobile ad market reached 216 billion won ($198 million) in 2012, compared with 76.2 billion won the previous year, according to the report by the Korea Communications Commission. The figure represents the amount of orders local ad agencies received from their clients.

Of the total, search advertising jumped more than three-fold to125.2 billion won last year, while display advertising more than doubled to 90.7 billion won.

The communications watchdog projected the local mobile ad market to continue to grow this year.

The market for mobile advertising is expected to nearly double to 416 billion won this year, with search advertising reaching 216.4 billion won and display advertising growing to 199.6 billion won, it said. (Yonhap News)