Figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau UK digital ad spend report, which was conducted by PwC, show that spending on mobile advertising in the UK exceeded half a billion pounds last year. Mobile advertising grew like-for-like by 148% to £526 million in 2012 from £203.2 million in 2011.

As a result, mobile now accounts for 9.7% of all digital advertising spend - compared to 1.1% in 2009.

Overall, UK digital advertising increased by 12.5% on 2011 to a new annual record of £5.42 billion. Ten years ago, less than £200 million was spent on UK internet advertising.

Tim Elkington, Director of Research & Strategy at the Internet Advertising Bureau, said “Mobile has reached this milestone because marketers are becoming more attuned to the ‘always on’ nature of consumers who expect to engage with content wherever they are. Consequently, advertisers are increasingly buying integrated campaigns across online and mobile rather than regarding mobile as an afterthought. There's simply so much buzz around mobile. In the last 6 months, 20 more of the UK’s top 100 advertisers have produced mobile-optimised websites; 4G mobile ultra-broadband is enabling a new era of richer content consumption with tablets predicted to outsell PCs in 2013. This will help maintain mobile’s significant momentum in attracting both consumer attention and advertising pounds.”

Mobile video advertising saw particularly dramatic growth, up 1,601% from £0.8 million in 2011 to £13 million in 2012. However, search remained the largest segment; it grew by 164% to £365 million, accounting for 69% of mobile ad spend. Mobile display advertising (including video) increased by 121% to £150 million.

Although the consumer goods sector (FMCG) was the biggest overall spender on digital display advertising, entertainment & media was the top sector for mobile display (16% of mobile display spend) followed by FMCG (13%), retail (12%), finance (12%) and technology (11%).

[Research presentation (access for IAB members)]