US mobile ad spend to overtake magazines this year
Revenues from ads running on smartphones and tablets will outstrip those from newspaper, magazine and radio ads for the first time in the US this year, according to a new report from eMarketer and reported by Forbes.
Mobile ad revenues will jump 83 per cent, to US$17.7bn. That represents almost 10 per cent of all ad spending, as people quickly spend more and more time peering at the smartphones and kicking-back with their tablets–a total of two hours and 51 minutes a day, up 32 minutes from just a year ago. Mobile ad spend will trail only that of television commercials, of course, and desktop and laptop ads.
The forecast makes it hard to believe that just two short years ago, Facebook’s initial public offering suffered in part because investors weren’t sure the company could find a way to make much money on mobile ads. EMarketer estimates that mobile ads on Facebook will hit 68 per cent of its US ad revenues this year, up from 47 per cent last year.
