UPDATED 00:03 EDT / JUNE 01 2016

NEWS

Report: 419 million people now use ad blockers on their smartphones

The rising popularity of ad blocking is not limited to traditional computers with a new study finding that increasingly large numbers of people are now using the technology on their smartphones.

According to a report from PageFair Ltd. at least 419 million people now use ad blockers on their smartphones, accounting for some 22 percent of an estimated 1.9 billion smartphone users worldwide, and up 90 percent from January 2015.

The surging popularity of smartphone ad blocking is being driven in Asia with an estimated 159 million users of ad blocking browsers in China, 122 million in India, and 38 million in Indonesia; of note all three countries have issues with slower internet speeds outside of major cities and higher data costs compared to local wages, suggesting that speed and cost are the major driving forces behind the uptake.

European and  North American users conversely have not adopted smartphone ad blocking in any great numbers, with an estimated 14 million users across both continents combined; in North America, 1.2 percent of smartphone users are using browsers that automatically block ads, while content-blocking apps are on only 0.9 percent of smartphones.

In 2015 PageFair issued a warning that ad blocking could cost publishers $41.4 billion in lost advertising revenue this year, up from $21.8 billion in 2015; it should be noted though that PageFair operates a service that assists publishers to circumvent ad blockers, so it’s in their advantage to portray any potential losses as being large.

No surprise

The uptick in ad blocking on smartphones, particularly in territories with slower mobile internet speeds and high data costs, should come as no surprise to anyone given how widespread ad blocking technology has become.

While some companies, such as Google, Inc. and The Washington Post may have declared “war” on adblockers previously, others, particularly in the publishing industry, are thankfully starting to recognize that the root cause of the rise of ad blocking is due to users being sick and tired of obtrusive ads that can often account for half the load on a given web page.

Vincent Peyrègne, CEO, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, hits it on the head, telling PageFair:

“Mobile is now a major channel for news consumption, and is growing rapidly. Ad blocking on mobile threatens this growth. We as an industry knowingly allowed bloated ads to run amok on news sites, packed with enough tracking software to annoy readers to ad nauseam, and causing a host of UX problems for users. We have to fix this.”

Chris Llewellyn, CEO, International Federation of Periodical Publishers adds:

“Ad blocking is an exceptionally important issue facing all digital content creators. Blocking the ad blockers at the point of engagement with websites is an option in the short run, but in the long run the solution probably lies in advertising that moves away from clutter, from CPM-based selling, to premium solutions. To this end the media owners FIPP represents, and the advertisers and other stakeholders have a job to do to clean up the UX mess that led to this situation. FIPP hopes to play a user role in the journey to better.”

Having identified the problem driving people to ad blockers, it may not be too late yet to address ad blocking and save the online advertising business before it passes the point of no return.

Image credit: 132604339@N03/Flickr/CC by 2.0

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