Will Mobile Ad Spending Exceed TV in the US This Year?

April 24, 2018

This article is included in these additional categories:

Advertising Trends | Digital | Industries | Media & Entertainment | Mobile Phone | Spending & Spenders | Tablet | Television | TV Advertising

It’s no secret that mobile ad spending has been gaining steam in the US, at last count comprising 54% of all online ad revenues as of H1 2017. A new forecast from eMarketer takes things a step further, calling for mobile to be the single largest advertising medium overall in the US as soon as this year.

The forecast expects that mobile will account for roughly 7 in every 10 dollars spent on internet advertising in the US this year. As a result, it will capture more than one-third (33.9%) of total US media ad spending, which would exceed the share dedicated to TV advertising (31.6%).

It’s worth putting this forecast up against a couple of others to see how they compare:

  • A forecast released last year by MAGNA estimated that mobile accounted for 27% share of total US ad spending, compared to roughly one-third going to national and local TV; while
  • A forecast from PwC predicted that $64.1 billion would be spent on mobile advertising in the US this year, compared to $72.3 billion on TV advertising.

As such, it seems as though eMarketer’s forecast is slightly more bullish on mobile’s role in relation to TV than others. It’s also worth noting that TV ads continue to hold much greater appeal among the public than online ads, though that’s unlikely to affect spending levels given the differing trends in consumption of these media.

Nonetheless, mobile advertising is expected to grow at a much faster rate than the US media advertising market as a whole this year (23.5% and 6.6%, respectively).

Given its continuing rapid growth, mobile is expected to rise all the way to 48% share of US media ad revenues by 2022, per eMarketer’s forecast, almost twice the share allocated to TV (25%).

On this front, eMarketer may not be so bullish: last year’s forecast from MAGNA pegged mobile at half of all US ad revenues by 2022.

It’ll be fun to see if current trends hold…

45th Parallel Design Ad

Explore More Charts.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This