China makes history with mobile ad spend: Warc

China has become the first market in the world to spend the majority of its ad dollar on mobile, according to Warc’s latest Global Ad Trends report.

The organisation, which has analysed global ad spend in 96 markets since 1980, said China has become the world’s largest mobile ad platform, with the US set to be second in 2017 with a predicted US$40 billion spend.

Warc also found that of internet spend in 2015, 31 percent was for mobile ads, up from 1 percent a decade ago.

James McDonald, Warc’s senior data analyst and author of the report, said China’s mobile growth was “a sign of the times”.

“It is also fascinating to note the juxtaposed trajectories of the world's two largest advertising markets,” he added. “While the amount spent to secure ad space in the US remained unchanged during the 10 years to 2015, that spent in China grew three and a half times over this period."

While television retained the largest share of global ad spend in 2015, it has fallen every year since 2012, the Warc report found. It also forecast that while global ad spend grew 5.2 percent in 2016, that is set to drop to 3.6 percent in 2017.

In addition, Asia-Pacific also hit the upper echelons of ad spend per capita. Hong Kong was the highest by some distance at US$782.33, with the US second (US$523.74) and Australia third (US$467.18).