Mobile Ad Impressions

Delivered February 9th, 2018. Contributors: Nicola H., Gaurav R. and

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Mobile Ad Impressions Part 1- Background Data

Using smartphone users as a proxy for mobile ad penetration, I have completed column B of the spreadsheet as requested. Growth in the number of smartphone users worldwide is creating huge opportunity for mobile advertising. As early as 2013, advertising company Opera generated an estimated 720 billion impressions in one year. Total smartphone users worldwide have grown from 1.43 billion in 2013 to 2.4 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach 2.87 billion by 2020. Below, I provide a detail overview of my research to emphasize the lack of data on mobile ad impressions and then provide total smartphone users and tablet users worldwide for your reference. I end with some suggestions for additional research questions given the lack of direct data on mobile ad impressions. 
RESEARCH METHODAfter an extensive search for past, present, and future numbers by year, there appear to be no publicly available sources that provide the overall number of mobile ad impressions in the world. I particularly focused on older reports from 2013-2015, as often those are no longer paywalled, but still could not identify any reports giving a total number of mobile ad impressions. 

Given the lack of data on overall mobile ad impressions, you may be interested in what is available. There are some sources that provide a number for specific ad companies and specific regions. For example, this 2013 eMarketer article provides specific numbers  for Opera in Brazil. EMarketer also has paywalled reports on total mobile ad impressions for ad companies like Opera. In 2013, Opera self-reported that it served over 60 billion ad impressions per month, reaching 400 million customers worldwide. This number does provide some sense of the scale of global ad impressions. Just one ad agency alone reportedly served an estimated (60*12) 720 billion ad impressions annually back in 2013, indicating that ad impressions in total are likely in the trillions across all ad agencies and assuming that annual impressions have increased since 2013.

Other sources, like Statista, publicly share data for specific social media platforms, such as for Instagram and Pinterest, over specific periods of time. However, such data does not provide the overall number of impressions, but rather percentages of how ads are shared. In the last quarter of 2016, for instance, 74% of Instagram's ad impressions were through mobile web browsers compared with 26% through installed apps. 

There is also data publicly-available on the size of the mobile advertising market. According to eMarketer, mobile advertising is driving overall growth in media spending worldwide and accounted for 24.4% of total ad spending and 62.5% of digital ad spending in 2017 at $142.78 billion. 

Given the lack on information on mobile ad impressions, I turned to the similar methodology I used in Parts 2 and 3 of this project- using total smartphone users as a proxy for understanding mobile advertising impressions worldwide. This article by Campaign Brief emphasizes that the increasing penetration of smartphones around has "transformed the way that advertisers communicate with consumers" increasing contact points between companies and customers. Smartphones are the touch point for mobile advertisers and, as such, provide a valid proxy for understanding the global reach of mobile ad impressions. 

Before focusing solely on number of smartphones, I also researched average impressions by smartphone to attempt to estimate the total number of mobile ad impressions by multiplying the average and the total number of smartphones. Unfortunately, no such average number is publicly-available online. 

TOTAL SMARTPHONES WORLDWIDEI have entered the total number of smartphone users worldwide for 2013-2020 in the spreadsheet. These values are consistent with the figures used to calculate the percentages in column C. I'm also listing the figures here linked to the relevant sources and with detail on any calculations:

2013:	1.43 billion 
2014:	1.57 billion 
2015:	1.86 billion 
2016:	2.167 billion (2.4 billion smartphone users in 2017 a 10.8% increase over 2016. 2016 = 2400/1.108 = 2.167 billion smartphone users)
2017:	2.4 billion 
2018:	2.53 billion 
2019:	2.71 billion 
2020:	2.87 billion 

TABLETSAs mentioned in Parts 2 and 3 of this project, I have excluded tablets from the above calculation, because there is overlap between smartphone and tablet users that publicly-available sources do not account for. However, you may be interested in the overall number of tablet users worldwide:

 2013: .66 billion (46.15% of smartphone value)
 2014: .86 billion (54.78% of smartphone value)
 2015: 1 billion (53.76% of smartphone value)
 2016: 1.12 billion (51.68% of smartphone value)
 2017: 1.23 billion (51.25% of smartphone value)
 2018: 1.32 billion (52.17% of smartphone value)
 2019: 1.4 billion (51.66% of smartphone value)
 2020: 1.46 billion (50.87%)

The number of tablets relative to smartphones shows that growth in tablet users has stayed relatively consistent (generally around 50-52% with some outliers) compared to smartphones. In general, there is about 1 tablet user to every 2 smartphone users with fewer in 2013 and a slight increase in 2014 and 2015.
POSSIBLE CONTINUED RESEARCHGiven what is and isn't publicly available on mobile ad impressions, you may be interested in these follow-up research questions:

Provide total worldwide mobile ad spending for 2013-2020.

Provide total mobile ad spending in Asia Pacific for 2013-2020.

Provide total smartphone users in X country/region for 2013-2020. 

CONCLUSIONConsistent with Parts 2 and 3 of this project, I have provided the total numbers of smartphone users worldwide as a proxy for understanding the reach of mobile ad impressions. Although no direct data is publicly available on mobile ad impressions, Opera's estimated 720 billion overall impressions in 2013 indicate that is an extremely large number. Total smartphone users worldwide grew from 1.43 billion in 2013 to 2.4 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach 2.87 billion by 2020.

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Mobile Ad Impressions Part 2- Background Data

Using smartphone users as a proxy for mobile ad penetration, I have updated the spreadsheet with the percentage of Asia Pacific smartphone users relative to the global totals for 2013-2020. Asia Pacific comprised 51.62% of global smartphone users in 2013 increasing to 55.42% in 2017, and is estimated to reach 59.58% by 2020. I outline why I focused on smartphone users versus overall mobile devices and the mobile ad market below. I then include detailed calculations for smartphone users by year linked to the appropriate source and have also include data on tablet users in case that is of interest to you. 
RESEARCH METHODAfter an extensive search, there is no publicly available source that breaks down the percentage of Asia Pacific region relative to global mobile device usage. There are also no publicly-available sources that provide the percentage for the mobile ad market for the Asia Pacific region. Reports on this topic, such as this one from Zion Market Research, are paywalled. 

However, there are several sources that provide numbers of mobile phone and smartphone users in the Asia Pacific Region and globally. Reviewing your related requests in this project, I see you are most interested in the mobile ad market and impressions. For this reason, I prioritized data on smartphone users whose devices would be able to receive mobile ads, using smartphones as a proxy for understanding mobile ad impressions. This was also because data on mobile devices (including but not overlapping phone and tablet users) for all the years requested was not fully available in public sources. 

As there is overlap between tablet users and smartphone users, I purposefully excluded data on tablets from the data in the spreadsheet to avoid double counting mobile device users. That said, I still pulled the Asia Pacific and global numbers of tablet users in case that is of interest to you and have listed the data below. 

Complying the percentages for all the years requested required using several sources. As such, I have provided my calculations below with links to the appropriate sources. 

CALCULATIONS & FINDINGSAs noted in eWeek, Asia-Pacific comprises around 55% of the world's total mobile users as of 2017. Looking at smartphone users as a proxy for mobile ad penetration, Asia-Pacific has continued to comprise between 51.62-55.42% of the world's total smartphone users between 2013-2017 and is projected to increase to 59.58% of the global number of smartphone users by 2020. 

2013: 
Asia-Pacific = 738.2 million smartphone users
Global = 1.430 billion smartphone users
Percentage= 636.4/1430 = 44.5%

2014: 
Asia-Pacific = 888 million smartphone users
Global = 1.57 billion smartphone users
Percentage= 888/1570 = 56.56%

2015:
Asia-Pacific = 1.024 billion smartphone users
Global = 1.86 billion smartphone users
Percentage= 1.204/1.860 = 55.05%

2016
Asia-Pacific = 1.19 billion smartphone users
Global = 2.4 billion smartphone users in 2017 a 10.8% increase over 2016. 2016 = 2400/1.108 = 2.167 billion smartphone users
Percentage= 1.19/2.167 = 54.94%

2017
Asia-Pacific = 1.33 billion smartphone users
Global = 2.4 billion smartphone users
Percentage= 1.33/2.4 = 55.42%

2018
Asia-Pacific = 1.46 billion smartphone users
Global = 2.53 billion smartphone users
Percentage= 1.46/2.53 = 57.71%

2019
Asia-Pacific = 1.59 billion smartphone users
Global = 2.71 billion smartphone users
Percentage= 1.59/2.71 = 58.67%

2020
Asia-Pacific = 1.71 billion smartphone users
Global = 2.87 billion smartphone users
Percentage= 1.71/2.87 = 59.58%

TABLETSIn case you are also interested in the number of tablet users in the Asia-Pacific region compared to the world, I have compiled the following statistics. Please note that 2016 and beyond are projections from 2015 and that 2014-2020 use 4.5 billion as an estimate for the total population of Asia Pacific as no growth rate is publicly-available for all years and would take considerable additional research to calculate. For that reason, tablet growth in Asia Pacific is likely slower than estimated below, since the population will grow during this period. That said, we see a similar pattern of Asia Pacific making up around 55% of total global tablet use in 2017:

 2013
Asia-Pacific = 7.2% of population of 4.3 billion = .309 billion tablet users
Global = .66 billion tablet users
Percentage = 46.82%

2014
Asia-Pacific = 9.3% of population of 4.5 billion = .419 billion tablet users
Global = .86 billion tablet users
Percentage = 48.66%

2015
Asia-Pacific = 11.4% of population of around 4.5 billion = .513 billion tablet users
Global = 1 billion tablet users
Percentage = 51.3%

2016
Asia-Pacific = 13.3% of population of around 4.5 billion = .599 billion tablet users
Global = 1.12 billion tablet users
Percentage = 53.44%

2017 
Asia-Pacific = 15.1% of population of around 4.5 billion = .68 billion tablet users
Global = 1.23 billion tablet users
Percentage = 55.24%

2018
Asia-Pacific = 16.7% of population of around 4.5 billion = .752 billion tablet users
Global = 1.32 billion tablet users
Percentage = 56.93%

2019
Asia-Pacific = 18.2% of population of around 4.5 billion = .819 billion tablet users
Global = 1.4 billion tablet users
Percentage = 58.5%

2020
Asia-Pacific = 19.83% of population* of around 4.5 billion = .892 billion tablet users
Global = 1.46 billion tablet users
Percentage = 61%
* No value provided for 2020, calculated using growth rate from 2018-2019 of 9%

CONCLUSIONUsing smartphone users as a proxy for the mobile ad market, I have calculated the percentage for Asia Pacific out of the global market for 2013-2020 and listed the results in the spreadsheet. Although tablet and smartphone users likely overlap, I have also provided you with data on tablet users in case that is of interest to you. Asia Pacific comprised 51.62% of global smartphone users in 2013 increasing to 55.42% in 2017, and estimated to reach 59.58% by 2020. 

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Mobile Ad Impressions Part 3

Using smartphone users as a proxy for mobile ad penetration, I have completed columns D-H of the spreadsheet, as requested. I calculated the percentage of total smartphone users in Asia Pacific that are in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore. A significant take away from this data is that Indonesia leads among these countries in terms of gross number of smartphone users at 55.4 million, or 5.63%, of total smartphone users in Asia Pacific in 2017. However, as a regional economic hub, Singapore leads in terms of the percent of its population that are smartphone users (74.7% in 2017) and the percent of mobile devices that are smartphones (87.2% in 2017).
RESEARCH METHODAfter an extensive search, there is no publicly available source that breaks down the percentage of mobile device users relative to the whole Asia Pacific region for each of these countries. However, there are sources that provide the total number of mobile and smart phone users in each country. 

Reviewing your related requests in this project (and noting that I completed Part 1 of this project), I see you are most interested in the mobile ad market and impressions. For this reason, I prioritized data on smartphone users whose devices would be able to receive mobile ads, using smartphones as a proxy for understanding mobile ad impressions. This was also because data on all mobile devices for all of Asia Pacific (including but not overlapping phone and tablet users) for all the years requested was not fully available in public sources. 

This 2013 report from eMarketer (used for 2013 data for Indonesia below) uses statistics on smartphone penetration in Asia Pacific to emphasize that 2013 was a tipping point for mobile advertisers in realizing that they need to market to countries in the region. As such, it does seem that number of smartphone users is a strong proxy for mobile advertising reach in Asia Pacific. 

As there is overlap between tablet users and smartphone users, I purposefully excluded data on tablets from the spreadsheet to avoid double counting mobile device users. That said, I did research tablet users in each country in case that is of interest to you. There is very little publicly available information on tablet users for each country, but I did include links to a couple useful paywalled sources below and data for Indonesia.  
CURRENT POPULATION BY COUNTRYIt is important to understand the different population sizes for each country to understand their number of smartphone users in context. Although Indonesia has the largest gross number of smartphone users, it also has the highest population in the region, indicating one reason why its number is so high. Here are the population figures for your reference:

MALAYSIA: 31.88 million 
THAILAND: 69.13 million 
INDONESIA: 265.70 million 
PHILIPPINES: 106.51 million 
SINGAPORE: 5.76 million 

DATA AND CALCULATIONSEMarketer has a wealth of data on the number of smartphone users by country. However, they did not always have data for 2013 or 2020. In those cases, I calculated the average growth rate from available years and then used that estimated rate to calculate the missing data. All calculations are in the "Growth Rate Calculations" tab of this spreadsheet with the average growth rates highlighted in blue and the estimated values highlighted in yellow. I have also marked estimated years with an asterix below and linked to all sources:

2013: 
Asia-Pacific = 738.2 million smartphone users
Malaysia*: 7.6 million estimated = 1.03%
Thailand*: 13.9 million = 1.88%
Indonesia: 41.6 million =0.5%
Philippines*: 18.7 million = 5.64%
Singapore*: 3.66 million = 2.53%

2014: 
Asia-Pacific = 888 million smartphone users
Malaysia: 8.9 million = 1%
Thailand: 15.4 million = 1.73%
Indonesia: 44.7 million = .43%
Philippines: 21.8 million = 5.03%
Singapore: 3.8 million = 2.45%

2015:
Asia-Pacific = 1.024 billion smartphone users
Malaysia: 10.1 million =.99%
Thailand: 17.9 million = 1.75%
Indonesia: 55.4 million = .39%
Philippines: 26.2 million = 5.41%
Singapore: 4 million = 2.56%

2016
Asia-Pacific = 1.19 billion smartphone users
Malaysia: 11 million = .92%
Thailand: 20 million = 1.68%
Indonesia: 65.2 million = .35%
Philippines: 29.9 million = 5.48% 
Singapore: 4.2 million = 2.51 % 

2017
Asia-Pacific = 1.33 billion smartphone users
Malaysia: 11.8 million = .89%
Thailand: 21.9 million = 1.65% 
Indonesia: 74.9 million = .32% 
Philippines: 33.3 million = 5.63% 
Singapore: 4.3 million = 2.5%

2018
Asia-Pacific = 1.46 billion smartphone users
Malaysia: 12.7 million = .87% 
Thailand: 23.4 million = 1.6%
Indonesia: 83.5 million = .3%
Philippines: 36.5 million = 5.72%
Singapore: 4.4 million = 2.5%

2019
Asia-Pacific = 1.59 billion smartphone users
Malaysia: 13.7 million = .86%
Thailand: 24.8 million = 1.03%
Indonesia: 92 million = .29%
Philippines: 39.2 million = 5.79%
Singapore: 4.6 million = 2.47%

2020
Asia-Pacific = 1.71 billion smartphone users
Malaysia: 21.53 million (67.54% penetration rate * 31.878 population) = 1.26%
Thailand: 28.29 million = 1.65%
Indonesia*: 106.4 million = .28%
Philippines: 53.26 million (50.3% penetration rate * 105.885 population) = 6.22%
Singapore*: 4.8 million = 3.11% 
SMARTPHONE USERS RELATIVE TO POPULATIONNow knowing the number of smartphone users by country, you may find it useful to know the percentage of the population with smartphones to understand smartphone penetration in each country. These values are as follows for 2017 and percentages are calculated in the "Population Calculations" tab of this spreadsheet:

MALAYSIA: 31.88 million - 37% are smartphone users
THAILAND: 69.13 million - 31.6% are smartphone users
INDONESIA: 265.70 million - 28.1% are smartphone users
PHILIPPINES: 106.51 million - 31.3% are smartphone users
SINGAPORE: 5.76 million - 74.7% are smartphone users

We see that although Indonesia leads in terms of overall number of smartphone users, it has the lowest percent in terms of people with smartphones. Singapore leads, as almost three-fourths of its population are smartphone users.
SMARTPHONE USER PENETRATION RATE % OF MOBILE PHONE USERSI also researched the penetration rates of smartphone users out of total mobile phone users to provide a sense of the mobile device market in each country. It is possible to use this data to understand the total number of mobile phone users in each country. However, I did not make that calculation, because not all mobile phones can receive mobile ads. 

Interestingly, Singapore has significantly more smartphone users as a percent of total mobile phone users than the other countries, which makes sense given that it is a relatively more developed country and is an economic hub in the region. Data was only publicly available for the period 2014-2019 and is also entered in this spreadsheet. 

 SMARTPHONE USER PENETRATION RATE (% OF MOBILE PHONE USERS) 
	               2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
MALAYSIA	42.6%	46.6%	49.2% 	51.3% 	54.3%	57.3%
THAILAND	34.9%	39.2%	42.8%	45.8%	48.1%	50%
INDONESIA	32.6%	37.1%       40.4%	43.2%	45.4%	47.6%
PHILIPPINES 32%    	36.6%	40%	43.1%      46.1%      48.4%
SINGAPORE	83.1%      85.2%	86.3%	87.2%	88%	88.9%
ASIA PACIFIC 37.3%	40.8%	43.6%	46.2%	48.7%	51.5%
NOTE ON TABLET USERSAs completed on the Asia Pacific regional level, I researched the total number of tablet users for each country. The best source for this data appears to be eMarketer. Unfortunately they do not make tablet data publicly available by country either in one regional report or reports by each individual country. Here are links to two paywalled sources from eMarketer on this topic, in case they are useful to you:

"Tablet User Penetration in Asia-Pacific, by Country 2016-2021" 

"Tablet User Penetration in Thailand, 2015-2020"

I was able to find data on tablet use in Indonesia on Statista for 2014-2018, which is as follows:

 2013: 17.2 million (44.5% of smartphone value)
 2014: 24.6 million (55% of smartphone value)
 2015: 32.1 million (57.9% of smartphone value)
 2016: 37.8 million (57.9% of smartphone value)
 2017: 42.8 million (57.1% of smartphone value)
 2018: 47.9 million (57.4% of smartphone value)

Above I have calculated the percent of tablet users relative to smartphone users to compare the two. Between 2013-2018 the number of tablet users has increased such that there is now 1 tablet user for every two smartphone users in the country. Again, there is likely overlap with people owning both smartphones and tablets, which is why I have not added tablet users to smartphone users. 
CONCLUSIONI have calculated the percent of total smartphone users in the Asia Pacific region that are in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore and entered the values in this spreadsheet as well as above. Indonesia leads in terms of total smartphone users. Singapore leads in terms of the percent of its population and mobile device users that use smartphones. I have also provided additional data for these countries above and in this second spreadsheet. 

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Part

Mobile Ad Impressions by Country- Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore

In 2013, there were 7,600,164 mobile device ad impressions in Malaysia, and it would reach to 21,545,319 in 2020. The data available in the first sheet of the provided spreadsheet has been utilized by us to calculate the mobile ad impressions by country. We have calculated the mobile ad impressions for Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore by using following formula:

Global Mobile Ad Impressions x Percent of Global x Percent of Region
MOBILE DEVICE AD IMPRESSIONS FOR MALAYSIA (2013-2020)2013: 7,600,164 (1.43 Billion x 0.516 x 0.0103)
8,879,920 (1.57 Billion x 0.5656 x 0.01)
10,136,907 (1.86 Billion x 0.5505 x 0.0099)
10,953,058 (2.167 Billion x 0.5494 x 0.0092)
11,837,712 (2.4 Billion x 0.5542 x 0.0089)
12,700,347 (2.53 Billion x 0.5771 x 0.0087)
13,673,630 (2.71 Billion x 0.5867 x 0.0086)
21,545,319 (2.87 Billion x 0.5958 x 0.0126)
MOBILE DEVICE AD IMPRESSIONS FOR THAILAND (2013-2020)2013: 13,877,520 (1.43 Billion x 0.5162 x 0.0188)
15,362,261 (1.57 Billion x 0.5656 x 0.0173)
17,918,775 (1.86 Billion x 0.5505 x 0.0175)
20,001,236 (2.167 Billion x 0.5494 x 0.0168)
21,946,320 (2.4 Billion x 0.5542 x 0.0165)
23,361,008 (2.53 Billion x 0.5771 x 0.0160)
16,376,557 (2.71 Billion x 0.5867 x 0.0103)
28,214,109 (2.87 Billion x 0.5958 x 0.0165)
MOBILE DEVICE AD IMPRESSIONS FOR SINGAPORE (2013-2020)2013: 3,690,830 (1.43 Billion x 0.5162 x 0.005)
3,818,365 (1.57 Billion x 0.5656 x 0.0043)
3,993,327 (1.86 Billion x 0.5505 x 0.0039)
4,166,924 (2.167 Billion x 0.5494 x 0.0035)
4,256,256 (2.4 Billion x 0.5542 x 0.0032)
4,380,189 (2.53 Billion x 0.5771 x 0.0030)
4,610,875 (2.71 Billion x 0.5867 x 0.0029)
4,787,848 (2.87 Billion x 0.5958 x 0.0028)
MOBILE DEVICE AD IMPRESSIONS FOR INdonesia (2013-2020)2013: 41,632,562 (1.43 Billion x 0.5162 x 0.0564)
44,665,997 (1.57 Billion x 0.5656 x 0.0503)
55,394,613 (1.86 Billion x 0.5505 x 0.0541)
67,242,129 (2.167 Billion x 0.5494 x 0.0548)
74,883,504 (2.4 Billion x 0.5542 x 0.0563)
83,515,603 (2.53 Billion x 0.5771 x 0.0572)
92,058,510 (2.71 Billion x 0.5867 x 0.0579)
106,358,641 (2.87 Billion x 0.5958 x 0.0622)
MOBILE DEVICE IMPRESSIONS FOR philippines (2013-2020)2013: 18,675,599 (1.43 Billion x 0.5162 x 0.0253)
21,755,804 (1.57 Billion x 0.5656 x 0.0245)
26,212,608 (1.86 Billion x 0.5505 x 0.0256)
29,882,799 (2.167 Billion x 0.5494 x 0.0251)
33,252,000 (2.4 Billion x 0.5542 x 0.0250)
36,501,575 (2.53 Billion x 0.5771 x 0.0250)
39,271,937 (2.71 Billion x 0.5867 x 0.0247)
53,179,320 (2.87 Billion x 0.5958 x 0.0311)
CONCLUSIONIn 2013, there were 18,675,599 mobile device ad impressions in Philippines, and it would reach to 53,179,320 in 2020. We have presented our calculated figures in the second sheet of the spreadsheet named "Mobile Ad Impressions by Country." 