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Mobile Advertising

Mobile ad spending to overtake print this year as it quickly makes ground on TV's dominance

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By Tony Connelly, Sports Marketing Reporter

September 30, 2015 | 3 min read

Mobile advertising expenditure in the UK is set to rise by almost a half this year and will overtake print for the first time, according to the latest forecasts from eMarketer.

The increase in spend on mobile advertising is by no means unexpected but the rate of acceleration is faster than many have predicted, meaning publishers will have to up their investment on the online platforms as competition for advertising increases fast.

Mobile ad spend for 2015 is expected to have grown by 45 per cent this year to £3bn, taking up 20 per cent of total media spend in the UK. In contrast, expenditure on print will reach £2.67bn, or 16.4 per cent of total UK media spending for the year. Even within the realm of digital advertising mobile is quickly beginning to show signs of its dominance with emarketer estimating that it will account for 40 per cent of all digital ad spend this year and is expected to take half by 2016.

The study predicts that mobile advertising will quickly make gains on other formats and will soon rival TV. By 2016, TV’s share of UK total media ad spending will succumb to the power of mobile, losing its top spot when mobile’s predicted 25.5 per cent overtakes its share of 24.8 per cent. The following year, mobile is tipped to hold the crown of the undisputed largest ad channel in the UK market.

The significance of the shift is massive for both publishers and advertisers. This is no more evident than in the actions of one of the biggest media owners in the world, Yahoo, who have invested heavily in trying to get a clearer picture of mobile advertising. Earlier this summer it acquired app analytics firm Flurry for an estimated £117 - £175m; its biggest purchase since buying out Tumblr in 2012. Both Facebook ad Google have also upped their mobile games, throguh video and apps respectively.

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