Global Mobile Ad Spend Doubles to $17.9bn
- Wednesday, March 19th, 2014
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Global mobile ad spend more than doubled in 2013 to total $17.96bn (£10.79bn), up from $8.76bn in 2012, according to new figures from eMarketer.
The 105 per cent rise was fuelled largely by Facebook and Google, and more growth is predicted for 2014, when mobile ad spend is forecast to grow 75.1 per cent year-on-year to $31.45bn. That would make it accountable for almost one quarter of total global digital ad spend.
Facebook and Google represented the majority of mobile ad market growth worldwide last year. Combined, the two companies saw an increase of $6.92bn in net mobile ad revenues in 2013. These internet giants are consolidating their places at the top of the market, the analyst says. accounting for more than two thirds of worldwide mobile ad spending in 2013 – a figure that will increase slightly in 2014.
Facebook, in particular, is gaining significant market share. In 2012, the social network accounted for just 5.4 per cent of the global mobile ad market. In 2013, that share increased to 17.5 per cent, and eMarketer predicts it will rise again this year to 21.7 per cent.
Google still owns a plurality of the mobile advertising market worldwide, taking a portion of nearly 50 per cent in 2013, but the rapid growth of Facebook will cause the search giants share to drop to 46.8 per cent in 2014, eMarketer estimates. 
Twitter is one of the few companies expected to increase its share of the mobile ad market this year. eMarketer estimates the company saw its share of the worldwide mobile advertising market increase to 2.4 per cent last year, up from 1.5 per cent in 2012. This year, eMarketer estimates Twitter will see its share rise to 2.6 per cent.
The top six companies in terms of share of the global mobile advertising market in 2013 are:
- Google: 49.3 per cent
- Facebook: 17.5 per cent
- Twitter: 2.4 per cent
- Pandora: 2.1 per cent
- YP (formerly Yellow Pages): 2.1 per cent
- Millennial: 0.8 per cent
The rest of the mobile ad ecosystem combined accounts for the remaining 25.8 per cent. We were surprised not to see Yahoo in the top 6, but eMarketer explained that the company does not break out its mobile revenues in enough detail for it to be able to rank them.
