No one should be surprised by the forecast from US media forecaster and analyst eMarketer that ad blocker use in America will soar this year — at a time when the firm and other forecasters (most lately, PwC) are saying that online advertising is also soaring and will top the money spent on TV next year, instead of in 2018.
PwC, in its annual outlook for the US media sector (it has been releasing reports on major economies such as Australia in the past month), forecast that online ad spending is expected to overtake TV advertising in size next year. The firm predicts that online advertising spending will exceed US$75 billion next year, surpassing the US$74.7 billion projected for TV. And online is going to continue to grow faster than TV advertising — PwC says online advertising is expected to grow at a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 9.4% from 2015 through 2020, compared to TV’s 3.2% rate, says the report.
PwC says mobile’s share of online ad spend is expected to grow throughout the forecast period (to 2020), increasing to a predicted 49% share. So confronted with the growing ubiquity of online ads, especially on mobile, the use of ad blockers is soaring. eMarketer found that more than 26% — of Internet users will block ads this year. And, eMarketer forecast that in 2016, 69.8 million Americans will use an ad blocker, an increase of 34.4% over last year. And in 2017, that figure will grow another 24.0%, to 86.6 million people.
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