eMarketer

Total US Ad Spending to See Largest Increase Since 2004

Total media ad spending in the US in 2014 will see its largest increase in a decade, according to new figures from eMarketer.

On the strength of gains in mobile and TV advertising, total ad investments will jump 5.3% to reach $180.12 billion, achieving 5% growth for the first time since 2004, when ad spending increased 6.7%. Mobile will lead the 2014 rise in total media ad spending in the US, and advertisers will spend 83.0% more on tablets and smartphones than they did in 2013 -- an increase of $8.04 billion.

By the end of 2014, mobile will represent nearly 10% of all media ad spending, surpassing newspapers, magazines and radio for the first time to become the third-largest individual advertising venue, only trailing TV and desktops/laptops.

Though investments in TV advertising will rise just 3.3%, advertisers will spend $2.19 billion more on the medium than they did in 2013, making it the second-leading category in terms of year-over-year dollar growth. Strong, steady growth in mobile advertising will push digital ads to represent nearly 30% of all US ad spending in 2014. Advertisers will invest more than $50 billion in digital channels in 2014 for the first time, an increase of 17.7% over 2013. Just over one-third of that will come from mobile, but by 2018, mobile will account for more than 70% of digital ad spending.

Worldwide Smartphone Usage to Grow 25% in 2014

Consumers around the world are rushing into the embrace of the smartphone market, according to new figures from eMarketer on mobile usage worldwide.

By the end of 2014, we expect 1.76 billion people to own and use smartphones monthly, up more than 25% over 2013. Just under one-quarter of the world’s total population will use smartphones in 2014 -- and by 2017, more than one-third of all people around the globe will be smartphone users. eMarketer’s estimates for smartphone users account for the number of individuals who own and use smartphones, regardless of the number of smartphones each of those individuals might have.

The total figure does not tell the entire story of global smartphone usage, and advanced handsets have already saturated more than half the population in many countries -- or will in the next few years. “By 2015, we project that 15 countries worldwide will have seen more than half their populations adopt smartphones,” said Monica Peart, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. “The embrace of this technology among the approximately 500 million people in these countries who will be using smart devices by the end of next year will have a significant influence on media usage, ecommerce and marketing.”