The Mobile Division of Chinese Central Television with its exclusive mobile advertising partner 3rd Space, announced today that it is ‘open for business’ for brands wishing to advertise on its mobile WAP portal and iPhone and Android apps.

Global brand advertisers and digital content owners now have access to China’s 850 million mobile users through the CCTV mobile advertising platform that supports the full range of advertising inventory. This includes traditional display banner and pre-, mid- and post- roll video ads, together with a range of innovative solutions designed to enable brands to create and maintain their own dedicated eco-systems within the CCTV portal.

CCTV, the State broadcaster and most valued and recognisable brand in China, is the principal source for broadcast media content such as news and sport across TV, the Internet and mobile. CCTV already attracts over 10 million unique visitors per day to its free-to-view mobile portal and has passed 3 million downloads of its iPhone app; a user-base that is forecast to grow significantly driven by explosive demand from the growing affluent-generation of smartphone consumers in China.  China’s Ministry of Information has forecast that over 150 million smartphones will be sold in China during 2011 alone.

The CCTV mobile WAP portal, and associated mobile apps, is the primary destination for mobile users looking for news, business updates, weather, TV and sport in China.  CCTV is undertaking a major upgrade of its mobile WAP portal and apps to create a powerful mobile Internet presence, designed to integrate with the portal offerings of the three Chinese Mobile Network operators.

By deploying its state-of-the-art mobile advertising platform across the CCTV network, 3rd Space has created one of the largest mobile advertising platforms in China to deliver innovative mobile marketing solutions to the largest smartphone community in the world.

38% of Chinese mobile subscribers already use their phones to access the Internet compared to 27% of American mobile subscribers, according to the Nielson Company. And last year, Juniper Research predicted that China and the Far East will remain the largest regional market for mobile ad spend with revenues reaching more than $2.1 billion by 2012.

“With over 850 million mobile phone users in China, our agreement with CCTV positions 3rd Space as a leading company in the mobile advertising industry in China.  We are working with a number of global brands to create innovative and engaging customer acquisition and retention strategies in China’s growing digital economy,” says Warwick Hill, CEO at 3rd Space.