Over the next three years, mobile will drive the strongest sustained period of growth in advertising in 10 years, with global ad spend growth forecast to rise from 3.6 per cent in 2013 to 5.3 per cent in 2014. Growth is then set to increase to 5.8 per cent in 2015 and 2016. Mobile is expected to contribute 36 per cent of all the extra ad spend between 2013 and 2016. Television is the second largest contributor (accounting for 34 per cent of new ad expenditure), followed by desktop internet (25 per cent).

The figures come from ZenithOptimedia’s just-published Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report, which notes that this is the first time in the past 20 years that a new platform – mobile – is expanding overall media consumption without cannibalising any of the other media platforms.

The report points out that mobile advertising will account for just 2.7 per cent of global ad spend in 2013. By 2016, however, ZenithOptimedia expects it to account for 7.7 per cent of ad spend, leapfrogging radio, magazines and outdoor to become the world’s fourth-largest medium. The company counts as mobile all internet ads delivered to smartphones and tablets, whatever their format.

In addition to organic growth in mobile ad spend over the next three years, ZenithOptimedia believes that growth in global ad spend will come next year from the continued steady improvement in the European economy, and from the three ‘semiquadrennial’ events taking place: the Winter Olympics, the football World Cup, and the mid-term elections in the US. The company forecasts that the global advertising market will accelerate to 5.8 per cent in 2015 as a strong, broad-based economic growth takes hold, followed by another year of 5.8 per cent growth in 2016. This assumes that the Eurozone’s gradual recovery continues and that no new crisis occurs.

New Media Forecasts
In addition to the Advertising Expenditure Forecasts report, ZenithOptimedia has also published today its New Media Forecasts report, which charts the growth of mobile technology in 31 countries across the world. This report forecasts that smartphone penetration will increase across these markets from 37 per cent in 2013 to 64 per cent in 2016, while tablet penetration will increase from 9 per cent to 16 per cent over the same period.

Of the 31 markets covered, S. Korea has the highest smartphone penetration. 83 per cent of people in S. Korea now have a smartphone, and this is forecast to rise to 92 per cent in 2016. The rest of the top five are all in Western Europe: Norway (73 per cent penetration in 2013, forecast to rise to 85 per cent in 2016); Ireland (71/92 per cent); the UK (65/83 per cent); and the Netherlands (64/72 per cent).

Despite leading the way in terms of smartphone penetration, S. Korea ranks only 19th in the tablet league tables with 11 per cent tablet penetration in 2013, rising to 17 per cent in 2016). This is largely due to the popularity in the country of hybrid smartphone/tablets (“phablets”), which are classed as smartphones in the report.

The Netherlands has the highest tablet penetration (41 per cent in 2013, rising to 60 per cent in 2016), followed by Australia (36/50 per cent); Norway (32/38 per cent); the UK (31/47 per cent); and France (29/65 per cent).

Note: The 31 markets with smartphone and tablet penetration figures covered by the New Media Forecasts are: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, S. Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK and the USA. Belarus is also covered in the report, but without the mobile technology forecasts.