The UK is set to overtake the US as the country which spends the most on mobile, as a proportion of total digital ad spend, by 2018.

Thats according to eMarketer figures, which forecast that mobile ad spend in the UK will make up 27.9 per cent of digital spend in 2014, rising to 70.4 per cent in 2018, compared to 33.8 per cent and 67.8 per cent respectively in the US.

It is worth noting, though, that unlike other countries, the UK figures include spend on marketing via SMS, MMS and P2P messaging. Also, the annual amount spent on advertising is much higher per person in the US, at $670.65 (£391.97) per capita in 2018, than the UK, at $414.97.

South Korea is expected to be the third biggest spender, with mobiles share set to rise from 34.5 per cent this year to 66 per cent in 2018, though its total media spend in 2018 will only stand at $215.27 per person.

Despite talk of emerging markets being mobile-first due to a higher proliferation of internet-connected phones than PCs, spend on desktop advertising will continue to dwarf mobile, which will make up just 10.9 per cent in China and 4.2 per cent in India this year.

Both of these figures are expected to rise significantly by 2018, to 29.3 per cent and 15.8 per cent respectively, but will still lag far behind the West. The predicted spending per capita is also only a fraction of more established markets, at $48.66 in China and just $6.26 in India.