Welcome to the multi-screen world

The global mobile advertising market will hit two significant milestones in 2016, according to new figures from emarketer, surpassing $100 billion in spending and accounting for more than 50% of all digital ad expenditure for the first time. The $101.37 billion to be spent on ads served to mobile phones and tablets worldwide next year represents a nearly 430% increase from 2013. Between 2016 and 2019, the last year in emarketer’s forecast period, mobile ad spending is set to nearly double, hitting $195.55 billion to account for 70.1% of digital ad spend as well as over one-quarter of total media ad spending globally. Not surprisingly, growth in mobile ad spending is being driven by consumer adoption of mobile devices. Next year, emarketer estimates, there will be more than two billion smartphone users worldwide, over one-quarter of whom will live in China alone. Especially there and in other emerging and developing markets, many consumers are accessing the Internet mobile-first and mobileonly, so leading advertisers allocate their digital expenditure to mobile accordingly. The number of tablet users worldwide, while growing more slowly than the smartphone audience, is still expected to eclipse one billion in 2015. The proliferation of these mobile devices across the world is driving the shift in advertising from the desktop to reach these untethered, always-on consumers.