Google and Facebook dominate mobile advertising with 70% market share

You know you’re a boss when more than half of the world’s mobile advertising revenue goes in your pocket. According to a recent report by eMarketer, Google “earned more than half of the US$8.8-billion advertisers worldwide spent on mobile internet ads last year”.

Facebook’s worldwide mobile ad revenue is expected to reach US$2-billion this year, a first for the social network. The amount is a staggering increase of more than 300% from the company’s earnings last year on mobile.

As impressive as that it, it pales in comparison to what Google is taking home. eMarketer estimates “that Google made US$4.61-billion in mobile internet ad revenues last year, more than triple its earnings in 2011. This year’s mobile revenues will be up a further 92.1% to US$8.85-billion”.

With significant increases in their mobile ad revenue Facebook and Google will control nearly 70% of the global mobile ad pie. Other social platforms are also seeing slight increases on ad spend. According the research house, Twitter will also see an attractive boost with about two percent of the total worldwide mobile ad spend, with a slightly higher increase in the United States. Twitter has recently joined the money-making game and has shown remarkable improvement from the US$140-million it brought in 2012 to a projected US$310-million in 2013.

Combined, three companies—Google, Facebook and Twitter—account for a consolidating share of mobile advertising revenues worldwide, as other players, such as YP, Pandora, Apple and Millennial Media, see their shares decrease, despite maintaining relatively strong businesses growing at rapid rates.

When it come to digital ad spend, Google is leader of the pack with nearly 31.5% of total worldwide digital ad spend last year. But eMarketer cautions that while Google and Facebook are gaining impressive market share in the digital ad spend space it is not sustainable. According to the research house, Twitter will post the highest increase this year as a newcomer and smaller play in the online ad space.