New research has shown that Aussie mobile owners would be open to the idea of receiving ads on their smartphones – but they want something in return.

Roy Morgan Research has discovered that Aussies are increasingly interested in the notion that they could unlock their phone to advertising in exchange for a discount or extra monthly data, but not all service providers’ customers are on board.

Around 37 per cent of Australian smartphone users aged 14 and over agree that they would be interested in receiving ads on their phone if it in turn brought their bill down a notch – already that’s around 5.5 million people ready to be reached.

In October 2015, Lebara become the first local provider to offer such plans after making a deal with Unlockd, a Melbourne-based mobile platform developer that also recently announced expansion into the US and UK.

After downloading the app, users receive ads every few times they unlock their phones—and get a discount or extra data in return.

The data also shows nearly half of Dodo’s smartphone customers are keen on an ad-supported quid pro quo, followed by customers with Lebara’s own network operator Vodafone (44 per cent), and those with Amaysim (43 per cent), Optus (40 per cent) or Boost (39 per cent).

Smartphone users with iiNet are the least likely to be interested at27 per cent, with interest levels also below average among those with TPG (32 per cent), Aldi (32 per cent), Telstra (33 per cent) and Virgin (36 per cent).

“Dodo’s smartphone customers are the most likely to be interested in opening up their phones to ads in exchange for a discount but, like Lebara, this would equate to only a tiny overall reach for Unlockd and their future advertisers,” Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said.

“There are around 1.1 million smartphone customers at Vodafone and 1.3 million at Optus who could be interested in an ad-supported plan—that’s the sort of reach attained by the weeknight news on commercial television networks.

“The future challenge for advertisers and their media agencies using this new, broad-reaching channel will be to achieve accurate and cost-effective targeting—and the only way to do that is to understand the people holding each device. Our suite of digital products evaluates the effectiveness of advertising across target audiences.”