63 Percent of Global Digital Ad Spend Will Go to Mobile by 2018

As 2014 winds to a close, everyone is looking forward to 2015, but eMarketer is jumping ahead a bit further with its new worldwide ad spend tool and predicting that from 2014 through 2018, digital ad spend will see a strong growth, primarily driven by mobile.

The interactive tool enables users to view ad spend across 22 countries. Users can select and filter shares by year (throughout the forecast period), by market, and by category (total media ad spending, digital ad spending, and mobile ad spending). It estimates that global digital ad spend will reach $171 billion in 2015, up 17 percent compared to 2014.

Digital will further represent more than 30 percent of total media ad spend in 2016 and forward.

Meanwhile, eMarketer predicts that mobile advertising will be a key growth driver worldwide through 2018. In 2015, advertisers will spend $64.3 billion on mobile, up 60 percent from 2014. Looking forward, mobile will reach $159 billion in 2018, representing a whopping 63 percent of total digital ad spend.

A look at different markets shows that the U.S. has a critical presence in digital media, especially in mobile, followed by China and the U.K. In 2015, mobile ad spend in the U.S. will increase by 50 percent from a year prior and reach $28.2 billion, representing 44 percent of global mobile ad spend.

China and the U.K. will also invest heavily in mobile, according to the prediction tool. Next year, both markets will account for 19 percent and 7 percent of the global mobile ad spend, respectively.

By 2018, the U.S., China and the U.K. combined will account for 66 percent of worldwide mobile ad spend.

In comparison, Japan and Germany rank fourth and fifth, respectively, for digital and mobile ad spend throughout the forecast period.

To learn more, you can conduct your own global ad spend search via eMarketer‘s interactive tool.