Whilst COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on much of the ad industry, certain channels have been able to ride the storm, experiencing a newfound boost or seeing pre-existing upticks accelerating. Mobile falls into the latter category: average time spent on mobile and app usage have been on the rise for quite some time.
Mobile app continues to be the preferred access point to the consumer’s digital world. In fact, the vast majority of today’s smartphone users spend most of their time in apps rather than web browsers, with the average person spending 2 hours and 57 minutes in apps compared to just 26 minutes on a mobile browser.
Consumers downloaded 204 billion apps in 2019, as users around the world shifted to mobile-first browsing behaviors. COVID-19 lockdowns saw even more people turn to mobile for information, entertainment, connection, and a sense of normality.
eMarketer projects that mobile ad spending in EU-5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) will reach USD $43b (£33.7b) by the year 2023, up from USD $28b (£21.9b) this year. With numbers like these, it’s evident that this growing format is here to stay.
