More than eight in 10 mobile phone users in India are receiving advertising messages over their phone, a higher percentage than both the United States and the United Kingdom, according to Mobile Advertising Report. The United Kingdom and the United States follow India at 51 percent and 37 percent. Limbo, a California-based mobile social community Web site, and GfK Technology, a market research company based in Nuremburg, Germany, jointly released the report.

“We’re seeing an increase in consumer awareness of a variety of mobile advertising campaigns, from text message to interactive games to mobile Internet banner advertisements,” says Jonathon Linner, Burlingame-based Limbo’s chief executive officer. “With mobile phone usage growing, it’s logical for more companies to seek mobile marketing as a way to reach their segmented targets in this direct and highly interactive medium.”

The report found that, though mobile phone marketing exposure is prevalent in all three countries, the mobile delivery tools vary. Text messaging, however, remains the most common advertising format in all; 74 percent in India, 48 percent in the United Kingdom and 22 percent in the United States. Mobile Web advertising was most prevalent in the United Kingdom, with 16 percent of respondents recalling advertising compared with 8 percent of those in the United States and 4 percent of those in India.

Radio also showed a variation with nearly 40 percent of those in India recalling advertisements through radio on their mobile phones compared to only 9 percent in the United Kingdom and 3 percent in the United States. The report shows that younger males typically view mobile Internet advertising the most. The brands recalled in advertising via this channel were mainly mobile carriers, handset manufacturers, media brands and digital entertainment companies.

“These findings indicate the degree to which the mobile phone is used as a marketing channel, with enhanced handsets and flat rate data tariffs increasingly common, it is only a matter of time before mobile internet advertising starts to rival the penetration of SMS or text message marketing,” says Colin Strong, head of mobile communications research at GfK.

The Limbo-GfK Technology Mobile Advertising Report is a tool used to help understand the mobile advertising medium.