The Asia Pacific countries as a whole are leading the way with smartphone ad growth worldwide.
A new Smaato data analysis revealed that the highest mobile advertising growth in the world belongs to China. The findings were based on analyzing data produced by 300 billion mobile ad impressions that occurred in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
Smaato saw a near year-over-year doubling in first quarter mobile ad spend in China.
CEO and co-founder of Smaato, Ragnar Kruse, said “China is undoubtedly the rising tiger of mobile advertising, as they were the [number one] major market globally in terms of ad spend growth across our platform.”
The report greatly linked the Chinese mobile advertising growth to the timing of the Lunar New Year, which is celebrated in China. This year, Lunar New Year occurred on January 28. Smaato estimated that the celebration drove mobile ad revenue 18 percent higher than neighboring countries that did not celebrate that date.
Chinese mobile advertising growth also had to do with the prime ad time, which differs from other countries.
For example, in the United Kingdom and the United States, mobile ad views – and therefore advertising spending – peak on Monday through Friday between the hours of 3 pm to 9 pm (UK) and 7 pm to 11 pm (US). Similarly, Japan’s prime time is from 7 pm to 1 am. China, on the other hand, sees a consistent amount of mobile device use throughout the entire day. This means that mobile ad views and spending are steady all day long.
Mobile ads on Smaato’s network were most successful within the music app category. They represented 16 percent of all ad spending. Among eCPMs, it was the weather app category that took the lead. Still, the sports app category also had its moments to shine.
This occurred, for example, on Super Bowl Sunday at which time there was a spike of 25 percent over the daily average throughout the rest of that month. That said, this month, Copa America and the NBA Finals caused eCPMs on sports apps to spike again. This time, it represents a mobile advertising growth in eCPMs by 40 percent.
