If people still have doubts about the public acceptance of mobile advertising, a recent market study from JiWire reports that that mobile users overwhelmingly are willing to accept mobile advertising in return for having free applications.

Understanding the trends, consumption patterns, and preferences is key to making good use of a communications medium, and this report looks at not only acceptance of advertising, but also application usage, acceptance of location-based ads, and iPad purchase intent.

JiWire is a mobile media company, with a media channel consisting of over 30,000 public WiFi hotspots serving over 20 million unique users each month. JiWire use audience plus location data to deliver targeted advertising to consumers across this media channel.

The mobile audience report was based on the ad requests seen across the JiWire meda network in Q1 2010, as well as surveys of over 2000 randomly selected customers. As such, it presents a population of users that are very mobile as well as upscale in their choice of devices.

The users are also very involved with mobile applications, with 40% spending an hour or more per day using mobile applications.

The respondents also are receptive and responsive to mobile advertising. Over 50% said that they had “engaged” with a mobile advertisement within the past 30 days (eg click, visit website, etc), with 18% reporting that they had made a purchase within the past 30 days as a result of seeing a mobile ad.

In fact, there was a strong level of support for mobile advertising, with an overwhelming majority preferring free apps with advertising rather than paying for the app.

For more insights into mobile audience, visit the JiWire website.