Mobile ad revenue soars 105pc in 2013

20 Mar 2014

Mobile advertising can now firmly place itself as the dominant advertising medium after a recent report shows that ad spend on the mobile format jumped 105pc in 2013.

In the report by eMarketer, this 105pc jump accounted for a total spend of US$17.6bn last year. The report estimates this year’s spend to be nearly double this again at an estimated US$31.45bn.

Two companies dominate the market. The combined ad revenue of Google and Facebook last year totalled US$6.92bn, claiming 75.2pc of the additional US$9.2bn that went toward mobile in 2013.

Both companies account for more than two-thirds of the internet’s entire mobile ad spend,with no sign of this letting up any time soon.

Both companies, however, have seen huge changes to their revenues since 2012, both negatively and positively.

In 2012, Google accounted for just more than half of all mobile ad revenue at 52.6pc. However, by the end of this year, the company is expected to drop below this halfway mark at 46.8pc. This has been in no small part to Facebook’s significant gains from 5.4pc in 2012 to an estimated 21.7pc by the end of this year.

Facebook has been migrating at a rapid pace to its mobile marketing division and is now relying more heavily on it for revenue to the tune of 45pc of its total revenue in 2013, up from just 11pc in 2012 and it is expected to rise to 63.4pc by the end of this year.

Mobile advertising image via Shutterstock

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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