Mobile ad spend in the UK hit £1.62bn in 2014, up 63 per cent year-on-year.

Thats according to the latest report from the IAB and PwC, which found that mobile ads now accounts for 23 per cent of the total £7.2bn spent on digital advertising during the year – up from 16 per cent in 2013. But PwC senior manager Dan Bunyan argues that proportion is still too low:

“Despite digital’s continued stellar performance, there remains significant growth opportunities to be exploited on mobile and tablet devices,” he said. “These are the two areas where ownership and usage is extremely high but where advertising investment is disproportionately low. For instance, over half of web pages are viewed via mobile phones but they account for just 23 per cent of digital spend.”

Tablet-dedicated ads specifically are up 118 per cent on last year, to £87.4m – but still only account for 5.4 per cent of total mobile spend.

While search still dominates digital ad spend with a 52.4 per cent majority, display now holds its largest ever share at 32 per cent, driven largely by the growth of video and social media.

Consumer goods was the biggest vertical for mobile display ads in 2014, accounting for a 19 per cent share of spend, followed by entertainment (18 per cent) and retail (14 per cent).