GDP growth across Europe underpins strong online advertising market in 2016; Spend up 13 percent year-on-year in first half of 2016

LONDON (23 November 2016) – IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions -- in collaboration with IAB Europe -- announced updated findings from its annual European online advertising report, AdEx Benchmark H1 Study.

The online advertising market grew 13.4 percent year-on-year from €16.4 billion to €18.6 billion in the first six months of 2016.

Download a copy of the study here or learn more about the IHS Technology Advertising Intelligence.

“Strong economic growth in all the European Big Five for the first time since 2010 underpinned the surge in online advertising in the first six months of 2016,” said Eleni Marouli, Principal Analyst at IHS Technology and report author. “We saw an uplift across all formats from 2015.”

Mobile drives market

Mobile advertising amounted to €3.8 billion in the first six months of 2016, split evenly between search and display. Mobile’s share of search was 32 percent and mobile’s share of display was 32.8 percent, the report said.

“Mobile accounted for one in three euros spent in Europe,” Marouli said. “We expect mobile to play a primary role in European online advertising and to maintain growth at a double-digit level for 2016.”

Mobile display grew by just over 61 percent and mobile search by just over 57 percent. Mobile display was particularly prominent in Central and Eastern Europe, growing over 100 percent for the first six months of 2016 year-on-year. Western Europe’s more mature mobile display markets saw modest growth of just over 13 percent.

Outlook for 2016

“We expect spending on ads online to grow over 10 percent across Europe in 2016, faster than any other medium,” said Daniel Knapp, senior director at IHS Technology. “Finally the advertising infrastructure, measurement tools and volume of available inventory are all coming into place for advertisers to adjust their spending to match the increasing time people spend on online media.”

Hurdles identified by the report include duplication and fragmentation of ad tech infrastructure, no universal digital current and a complexity of devices, platforms and behaviors.