Mobile ad-spend to overtake print in UK
September 30, 2015
For the first time this year, mobile advertising expenditure in the UK will overtake spend on print advertising, according to the latest forecasts from eMarketer. Mobile ad spending has shown significant growth in recent years and is expected to rise 45 per cent this year to over £3 billion (€4bn) and will account for 20 per cent of total media spending in the country.
By comparison, spending on print will reach £2.67 billion, or 16.4 per cent of total UK media spending in 2015.
Mobile will continue to make gains on other formats across the forecast period and will soon rival spending on TV. By 2016, one year after mobile passes print spending, TV’s share of UK total media ad-spend will fall to 24.8 per cent as mobile increases its portion to 25.5 per cent. The following year, mobile will become the single largest ad channel in the UK market.
Continued robust growth in the mobile channel is driving the bulk of digital ad growth in the UK. eMarketer estimates that mobile will account for 40 per cent of all digital ad spending this year, with this figure rising to almost half by 2016.
In 2014, digital ad spending increased by 15 per cent, and this year, digital will slow slightly to 12 per cent. But that’s still much faster growth than that for total media ad spending, which will increase by 6.4 per cent this year to around £16.26 billion. Digital will account for half of all paid media ad spending in the UK next year, according to eMarketer’s forecast.