Microsoft, Apple and Samsung to launch Christmas advertising blitz

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Nokia smartphones built for Windows 8, which is to be launched with about $1.5bn to $1.8bn of advertising. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Microsoft, Apple and Samsung will lead smartphone and tablet makers in unleashing a $5bn blizzard of advertising in the runup to Christmas, analysts are predicting.

The battle for consumer hearts and wallets began this weekend, with Microsoft preparing for the biggest product launch of its corporate life. The software giant has set aside an estimated $1.5bn to $1.8bn (£1.1bn) for the launch of Windows 8, according to analysts, a sum the media analyst Robert Enderle says "is on a scale you don't see outside presidential elections".

Microsoft has always been big on advertising, but it is being joined now by younger digital titans such as Google that used to sniff at relying on traditional media, having grown rich through clicks and links and word of mouth.

Jeff Bezos once described advertising as "the price you pay for having an unremarkable product", but Amazon's founder has clearly had a change of heart. With tablets and e-readers to sell, his budget has more than doubled, rising from $593m in 2009 to $1.4bn in 2011.

Google has trebled its spend to $1.4bn in three years. Add in the rapidly growing marketing dollars from Motorola, which Google now owns, and the total spend last year was £2.1bn.

Annual reports for eight of the largest technology advertisers, from chip maker Intel to Sony, Samsung, Nokia, Google and Apple, show they spent a combined $15bn promoting themselves in their most recent financial year. Samsung, whose 2011 budget was $2.7bn, spent some of those dollars promoting televisions as well as handsets, and a large chunk of Sony's $4.5bn is reserved for marketing its Hollywood films.

But with promotional budgets growing more than 50% a year at some firms, total spend is likely to be significantly higher this year. Add in the outlay for promoting the arrival of 4G by various network operators, including EE in the UK, and the global spend for all things mobile could well reach $5bn in the final three months of 2012, says Benedict Evans at the research firm Enders Analysis.

"One and a half billion for Windows 8 sounds like a lot of money, but in the context of these companies it seems reasonable and appropriate. Microsoft need to communicate a fundamental change in their platform that is hugely strategically important to them in terms of driving their business into mobile."

With PC sales declining, the software firm is determined to join the portable computing party. Windows 8, reinvented for the touch screen and considered the most radical redesign since the release of Windows 95, goes on sale on Friday, along with Microsoft's Surface tablet. On 29 October, its smartphone software goes live, followed by new Windows phones from HTC, Nokia and others.
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