UK mobile advertising will overtake the multi-billion pound newspaper and magazine market next year, and surpass TV ad spend to hit £4.5bn in 2016, according a new forecast.
Mobile ad spend is expected to grow by 96% this year to £2.02bn in the UK, just a shade behind the £2.06bn forecast to be spent on print ads in newspapers, according to a report published on Tuesday by eMarketer.
The seemingly inexorable growth in mobile usage – half of Britons are expected to own an iPad, Kindle or similar tablet device by 2018 – will see the ad market grow a further 60% in 2015 to £3.2bn.
This will be some distance ahead of the entire UK print ad market, from newspapers to magazines, which is forecast contract from £2.8bn to £2.7bn.
EMarketer says that the stratospheric growth of mobile advertising – just four years ago the entire UK market was worth £83m – shows no sign of abating with a 38% rise to £4.46bn inked in for 2016.
This is well ahead of the £3.8bn forecast to be spent on TV ads in 2016.
“Continued robust growth in the mobile channel is driving the bulk of [overall] digital ad growth in the UK,” said eMarketer. “The dramatic growth of mobile and video ad expenditures will boost digital ad spending throughout the forecast period.”
The total UK digital advertising market is forecast to be worth £7.25bn this year, £7.97bn in 2015 and £8.64bn in 2016.
“Mobile will account for nearly 30% of all digital ad spending this year, with this figure rising to more than half by 2016,” the research company said.
EMarketer estimates that the total UK ad market across all media will rise a healthy 6.6% this year to £15.1bn.
“A strong economy, high consumer confidence and increases in spending on digital, TV, radio and outdoor formats will spur what growth there is in total media ad spending,” the company said. “While digital, and especially mobile, are boosting total growth, other channels are flat or even losing ad revenues”.
The report notes that between 2014 and 2018 the newspaper and magazine market will lose £276m in ad spend, although this does not factor in money made from digital revenue streams.
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