The UK’s mobile ad spending is set to reach nearly £7bn this year – going on to represent 36.6 per cent of the UK’s media ad investment by the close of the year.

According to eMarketer’s latest UK ad spending forecast, overall digital ad spend will grow by 11 per cent to 10.89bn in 2017 – accounting for 57.9 per cent of total media ad spend. Mobile drives growth in digital ad spend, accounting for 36.6 per cent of the total media ad spend on its own, due to the increasing amount of time that consumers are spending on smartphones. eMarketer predicts that mobile will grow to represent 53.8 per cent of total media ad spending by 2021.

In 2016, mobile ad investment surpassed desktop for the first time – with mobile ad outlays growing by 49.5 per cent to 5.4bn, compared to £4.41bn spent on desktops.

eMarketer also predicts that Google will gain the largest share of UK digital ad revenues in 2017, with a 40.7 per cent share, followed by Facebook at 16.4 per cent.

“Google still attracts the lion’s share of digital ad spend in the UK,” said eMarketer’s UK senior analyst Bill Fisher. “However, Facebook is seeing strong growth thanks to investments in video and a stellar performance from Instagram.”