Research: Mobile 2nd-largest ad medium
November 30, 2017
Mobile adspend across all formats is expected to reach $98.3 billion (€82.9bn) in 2017, representing almost a quarter (23 per cent) of worldwide advertising expenditure, according to new analysis from marketing intelligence service WARC.
The latest Global Ad Trends report also forecasts mobile adspend will record 35.2 per cent year-on-year dollar growth in 2017, with half (51 per cent) of the total allocated to search, followed by display formats (45 per cent) and then classified and other spend (4 per cent).
Mobile’s growth is such that it is now the second-largest ad medium by spend, having overtaken desktop Internet for the first time this year.
These are some of the report’s key findings based on data from WARC’s 12 key markets of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and USA, which collectively account for approximately two-thirds of the value of global ad trade.
Advertisers within these 12 key markets are expected to spend $45.2 billion on mobile display this year and the report found a strong correlation between Facebook’s global mobile ad growth and the growth of mobile display in these markets.
Mobile is expected to account for 88 per cent ($34 billion) of Facebook’s ad revenue in 2017, but its growth is forecast to ease to 40 per cent in 2017 compared with 70 per cent growth in 2016, and this in turn will see growth in global mobile display to begin to slow.
Elsewhere, comparison of company reports to WARC’s Adspend Database, which monitors advertising expenditure in 96 markets worldwide, reveals that the ‘duopoly’ of Facebook and Google will account for 61 per cent of all online adspend this year, up from 58 per cent in 2016 and 47 per cent in 2012.
Furthermore, their anticipated $133 billion in combined revenue will equate to a quarter of all global adspend in 2017, up from a fifth in 2016 and just 9.4 per cent in 2012.
“Daily mobile time has more than doubled over the last five years – from 1hr 17mins in 2012 to 3hrs 2mins in 2017 – and our research demonstrates how marketers are looking to capitalise on this by investing more in social, video and native mobile formats over the coming years,” advised WARC Data Editor James McDonald. “Much of this influx has been to the benefit of the duopoly, Facebook and Google, where one in four dollars of global advertising is now spent.”