Online advertising spend rose by 21% year-on-year to reach £1.68 billion in the first half of 2008, according to figures released today by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC). Internet advertising now accounts for 19% of UK ad spend, slightly behind total press and TV ad revenues.
Paid search continues to lead the way, growing by 28% year-on-year. It was worth £981 million in the first half of 2008, with its market share marginally up to 58.3% of total online advertising, compared to 57.8% in the first half of 2007. Total Internet display advertising spend rose 16.3% year-on-year to £333.8 million. This was boosted by a 36.6% increase in spending on ‘embedded’ formats such as banners, rich media and video
On the mobile front, the figures reveal that 3G ‘dongles’ are no longer purely a business user offering. Mobile network 3 sells more 3G dongles than mobile phones, while T-Mobile offers a £10 per month 3G dongle, which, coupled with a low-cost laptop, which may be given away free by AOL or Carphone Warehouse, substitutes for a traditional broadband contract on a fixed-based PC. In Q1 2008, 6% of adults used mobile broadband and in the five months from February 2008, 511,000 mobile broadband connections were sold by the UK’s five mobile network operators. 75% of those with access to mobile broadband use it at home, 18% do so at work and 27% while elsewhere/on the move. According to telecoms regulator Ofcom, the number of 3G connections (including mobile broadband connections) in the UK increased by 60% during 2007 to reach 12.5 million by the end of the year, amounting to 17% of all mobile connections.
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