Brands such as Coca-Cola and Carlsberg are increasingly investing in mobile augmented reality and Juniper Research predicts global revenues in the space will reach $1.5 billion by 2015.

A recent study conducted by Juniper found that the installed base of augmented reality-capable smartphones has increased from 8 million in 2009 to more than 100 million in 2010. Additionally, augmented reality applications are now being used by big brands such as eBay.

?I think what?s interesting really is the way in which the market has evolved,? said Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper Research, Basingstoke, England. ?Twelve months or so ago there were only a handful of augmented reality apps around and consumer knowledge was quite limited.

?The only people who were downloading them were those that were technology savvy and technology literate and they were primarily on Android devices and the iPhone,? he said. ?Now there are several hundred across a variety of operating systems.

Juniper Research provides analysis of the mobile and wireless sector.  

Mobile reality
According to the Juniper report, there are an increasing number of brands who are starting to see the potential of augmented reality technology and how it can benefit the market.

According to Mr. Holden, both developers and consumers have yet to be convinced that augmented reality applications are more than just gimmicks, given that many early deployments featured an augmented reality element that had been added at the last minute to a pre-existing app, or the use of augmented reality was limited and failed to engage with the end user.

?What we?re seeing now is that augmented reality is clearly going to be a hot topic,? Mr. Holden said. ?The speed of scale of interest that has been ramped up ? it?s going to be a few years before we see anything like this.

?The fact that we?ve moved on from pure location-based augmented reality to those incorporating computer vision is great,? he said. ?That then really fires up the potential accurate deployments of augmented reality, especially when you factor in computer vision.

The report shows that Coca-Cola has featured augmented reality elements in its mobile marketing campaigns.

Life in 3D
In 2009, Coca-Cola Europe created a mobile application that promoted its Fanta soft drink.

The application lets players take their position on either side of a printed game board available for download at http://www.fanta.eu.

Once in position, the 3D augmented technology recognizes the game board and lets players see what looks like a full-size tennis court on their mobile-phone screens (see story).

"Augmented reality is going into a lot of different fields,? Mr. Holden said. ?The scope for deployment will be limited only to the imagination to those developing the campaign and the application behind the campaign.

?It?s very similar to 3D,? he said. ?When you build an app with an augmented reality element, make sure that element is there from the beginning.

?Don?t throw it in last minute.?