Bill Cromwell

Mobile advertising is taking off around the world, fueled by the growth of smartphone adoption and more affordable data plans.

Ad spending nearly doubled in 2013, and it will continue the big gains in 2014, though there are some major shifts coming to the medium.

Global mobile advertising revenue increased by 92 percent in 2013, to $19.3 billion, according to a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, IAB Europe and IHS Technology. That’s up from just over $10 billion in 2012.

Last year, Americans spent more time with digital media than any other medium, for the first time ever. A new report from eMarketer finds that US adults spent 43.4 percent of their major media time with digital devices in 2013, up from 38.5 percent in 2012. D

igital outpaced television, which declined from 39.2 percent of media time in 2012 to 37.5 percent in 2013. And the gap will grow over the coming year. In 2014, eMarketer forecasts that digital will account for 47.1 percent of all major media time, the equivalent of five hours and 46 minutes, compared to 36.5 percent for TV, or four hours and 28 minutes. And mobile is driving the digital gains.

“The increase in digital media usage is almost exclusively attributable to mobile,” notes the report. “In 2014, the average US adult will spend 23 percent more time with mobile on an average day than in 2013, according to the forecast -- and that’s led to mobile cannibalizing time spent in just about every other category.”

In 2018, digital’s share of US ad spending will surpass television’s, albeit by a very small margin, 36.4 percent to 36.1 percent, according to a forecast from eMarketer.

Though TV will continue to draw a large number of ad dollars, digital will have the edge as new technologies command more and more of people’s time. “The outlook for the fairly distant future is, by definition, speculative, but there are a variety of factors that will affect the allocation of advertising budgets in the coming years,” says the report.

After hitting a high of 39.1 percent of all US ad spending in 2012, TV’s share will fall steadily over the next four years, down from 38.1 percent in 2014. By contrast, digital will grow steadily over that period. It’s expected to hit 27.9 percent in 2014. Between 2014 and 2018, its share will grow by another 30 percent.

What’s most notable about that growth is how much money will be funneled to mobile in the coming years. In 2012, mobile made up just 2.6 percent of all US ad spending. By 2018, it will account for 24.9 percent, or nearly $1 of every $4 spent. It will make up more than two-thirds of all digital spending.