Mobile Advertising Market Size, Share & Growth [Report 2025]

The mobile advertising market isn’t just growing—it’s redefining the digital space. With more than half of all digital ad spend now driven by mobile, this channel has become a central focus for marketers worldwide.

Advances in technology, changes in user behavior, and rising ad spend across emerging markets are reshaping how businesses connect with their audiences.

But with opportunity comes new challenges.

From navigating ad fatigue and privacy regulations to embracing AI and interactive ad formats, staying competitive in the mobile advertising market means adapting quickly.

In this article, we break down the key innovations, challenges, and trends that will define the mobile advertising market in 2025—and beyond.

Global Mobile Advertising Market Size and Growth

The global mobile advertising market has been on an impressive growth trajectory.

Back in 2022, the market size was valued at $333.04 billion (data.ai, now part of SensorTower). By 2023, it reached $362 billion, and 2024 saw it jump to $402 billion, according to the same source.

This growth reflects not just expansion but dominance within the digital advertising space.

Furthermore, forecasts from the Imarc Group indicate a sustained compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.13% from 2025 to 2035. Specific milestones in this forecast include:

• 2026: $492 billion
• 2027: $542 billion
• 2030: $724 billion
• 2035: $1.17 trillion

These numbers highlight the pivotal role mobile advertising will continue to play in shaping the digital advertising industry.

US Mobile Advertising Market Size and Growth

The U.S. mobile advertising market has experienced equally remarkable growth.

To provide more historical context, here are detailed U.S. mobile ad spend figures over recent years:

• 2021: $145.01 billion (65.7% of total digital ad spend)
• 2022: $161.74 billion (+11.5% annual growth; 65.6% share of total digital ad spend)
• 2023: $177.02 billion (+9.4% annual growth; 65.5% share of total digital ad spend)
• 2024: $202.59 billion (+14.4% annual growth; 66.0% share of total digital ad spend)
• 2025: $228.11 billion (+12.6% annual growth; 66.4% share of total digital ad spend)

These figures underline the U.S. market’s significant contribution to global mobile ad growth.

Ad Format Distribution

Breaking down ad spending by format in 2024 offers further insight into where budgets are being allocated in the US:

• Search Advertising: Dominates mobile ad spending with $81.5 billion.
• Video Advertising: Accounts for $58.92 billion, reflecting the growing demand for engaging, dynamic content.
• Banner Advertising: Remains a major player with $50.96 billion spent.
• Influencer Advertising: While smaller in scale, still significant at $4.85 billion, driven by social media trends and creator partnerships.

Global Mobile Advertising Market Share

Looking ahead, projections indicate that mobile advertising’s share of the digital advertising market will continue to rise steadily over the next few years.

According to Statista, the total digital ad market size is expected to reach:

• 2025: $798.7 billion
• 2026: $854.9 billion
• 2027: $910.3 billion

As the overall market expands, mobile advertising’s share is projected to increase as follows:

• 2025: 56.00% of the total digital ad market
• 2026: 57.55%
• 2027: 59.54%

These projections highlight a clear trend: mobile advertising is set to not only grow in absolute terms but also capture a larger portion of the digital advertising market.

In-app Advertising Market Size and Growth

In-app advertising has become a major driver of the mobile advertising market, consistently holding the majority share in mobile ad spending.

The market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.17% between 2025 and 2029, resulting in an estimated market volume of $533.90 billion by the end of that period.

In terms of ad spending per mobile internet user, the average is anticipated to be $59.23 in 2025. Regionally, the United States is predicted to generate the highest ad spending within the in-app advertising segment.

The dominance of in-app advertising can be seen clearly when comparing it to mobile web advertising.

In 2024, total mobile ad spending in the U.S. reached $202.59 billion, with in-app advertising accounting for $165.88 billion or 81.9% of that total. Mobile web ad spending, by contrast, amounted to $36.70 billion. (eMarketer, 2025)

Historical Data on In-app Advertising in the US

To understand the growth of in-app advertising over the years, here is a breakdown of historical mobile ad spending data in the US:

2020:

• Overall mobile ad spending: $104.08 billion
• In-app ad spending: $83.07 billion (8%)
• Mobile web ad spending: $21.02 billion

2021:

• Overall mobile ad spending: $145.01 billion
• In-app ad spending: $117.53 billion (1%)
• Mobile web ad spending: $27.47 billion

2022:

• Overall mobile ad spending: $161.74 billion
• In-app ad spending: $130.99 billion (0%)
• Mobile web ad spending: $30.76 billion

2023:

• Overall mobile ad spending: $177.02 billion
• In-app ad spending: $144.13 billion (4%)
• Mobile web ad spending: $32.89 billion

The consistent increase in both total and in-app ad spending highlights the growing preference for in-app formats due to their ability to offer more targeted, interactive, and engaging ad experiences.

2025 Predictions for In-App Advertising

Looking forward, the 2025 forecast further emphasizes the expanding influence of in-app advertising.

Mobile web ad spending is expected to rise to $40.34 billion, but it will still be significantly outpaced by in-app investments.

These figures highlight the growing reliance on in-app advertising as a core strategy for brands aiming to connect with mobile-first audiences.

With mobile devices now driving the majority of internet usage, businesses are prioritizing in-app channels for their ability to deliver highly targeted and interactive campaigns.

Apps allow for deeper user engagement through features such as push notifications, personalized offers, and native ad formats that blend seamlessly with the user experience.

In-Game Advertising Growth

After experiencing some volatility in recent years, in-game advertising is projected to grow steadily through 2028.

Game developers continue to account for a large share of the ads served within games. However, the introduction of more standardized ad formats has attracted a growing number of non-endemic brands seeking to tap into gaming’s vast and diverse audience.

Data from eMarketer confirms the growth of in-game advertising.

Historical Data on In-Game Advertising

2023:

• Game ad revenues: $8.05 billion
• Growth rate: 4%
• Share of digital ad spending: 0%

2024:

• Game ad revenues: $8.59 billion
• Growth rate: 7%
• Share of digital ad spending: 8%

Forecast Data

The steady rise in in-game advertising revenues highlights increasing brand interest in reaching gamers.

As games provide immersive and highly engaging environments, they present unique opportunities for advertisers to integrate their messages in non-disruptive ways, such as through in-game ads, branded content, and rewarded ads.

Top Mobile Markets

These are the top mobile markets by app downloads according to SensorTower. The overall trend indicates strong growth in app downloads across multiple regions, with developing countries driving much of the increase.

1. India remains the top market for mobile app downloads across all years, with over 25 billion downloads in 2024.
2. United States holds the second position, showing consistent growth in app downloads year over year.
3. Brazil ranks third with a steady volume of downloads, though lower than the top two markets.
4. Indonesia and China Mainland also rank highly, each showing significant growth, particularly in China (iOS only).
5. Other key markets include:
   • Mexico, Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, and Philippines, each with billions of downloads.
   • Vietnam, Germany, Egypt, United Kingdom, and Japan are prominent mid-tier markets.
6. European markets like France and United Kingdom see moderate but steady growth.
7. Emerging markets such as Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea maintain stable contributions to mobile app downloads.

Consumer Behavior and Engagement

In 2024, mobile device usage skyrocketed to new heights, reshaping how users engage with apps, social platforms, and advertising content. Understanding these trends is crucial for marketers looking to refine their strategies and maximize engagement.

Mobile Usage Statistics in 2024

The SensorTower State of Mobile Report (2025) reveals impressive growth in mobile activity across key areas:

Total Hours Spent on Mobile

Average Time per User

The average user spent 3.5 hours per day on their mobile device, reflecting a 2.9% YoY increase. To break it down, this means users dedicated over 13 minutes of every waking hour to mobile activities.

Number of Apps Used

Each user interacted with 26 different apps per month on average, a significant 9.2% increase compared to 2023. On a daily basis, users accessed around 7 unique apps.

Social Media Engagement

Social media apps continued to dominate, with consumers spending nearly 2.4 trillion hours on these platforms. This translates to 6.6 billion hours of daily social app usage worldwide.

These statistics emphasize the ever-growing importance of mobile in daily life. For advertisers, these engagement levels present both opportunities and challenges, as capturing and holding user attention becomes increasingly competitive.

The Rise of Mobile Commerce and Impulse Buying

The surge in mobile engagement has fueled the growth of mobile commerce. Smartphones have become essential shopping tools, offering users convenience through in-app purchases, seamless payment systems, and personalized recommendations.

This convenience encourages impulse buying, which is significantly higher on mobile devices than on desktops. Push notifications, flash sales, and real-time influencer content drive consumers to make purchase decisions within moments, often without extensive comparison or second thoughts.

To capitalize on this behavior, brands are focusing on reducing friction in the purchasing journey—prioritizing quick checkouts, mobile-exclusive offers, and strategic ad placements.

Preference for Video Content on Mobile

Video content, particularly short-form video, has become the most engaging format on mobile devices. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts have revolutionized content consumption with their fast-paced, user-friendly experiences.

As a result, advertisers are investing in mobile-first video strategies, creating content that delivers impactful messages in under 10 seconds. The combination of autoplay, portrait orientation, and social sharing amplifies the reach and effectiveness of video campaigns.

Key Growth Factors: Trends and Innovations

Several key factors and trends are fueling the rapid growth of mobile advertising globally and in the U.S. These factors include technological advancements, shifting user behavior, and increased brand investment in mobile channels.

Increasing Mobile Usage

The number of mobile device users continues to rise, with smartphones now accounting for over 7 billion devices worldwide. Mobile is now the primary way users access the internet, leading advertisers to focus their budgets on reaching consumers where they spend most of their time.

Social Media and Video Consumption

Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have seen exponential growth in engagement, particularly through mobile devices. Advertisers are investing heavily in these platforms to take advantage of short-form video ads, influencer marketing, and interactive content, which drive higher engagement rates.

E-commerce Expansion

Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is growing rapidly, with more consumers using apps to shop and make purchases. Retailers are increasing their ad spend to promote mobile-exclusive offers and drive app installs.

Generative AI

Generative AI has rapidly become a billion-dollar industry, transforming both user experiences and advertising strategies.

The rise of AI-powered apps gained momentum after ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022. By 2024, the demand for AI chatbots and AI art generators skyrocketed, leading to impressive growth in both revenue and downloads.

Key Statistics for Generative AI Apps

The United States leads in market share, contributing 45% of global revenue.

Following this, the United Kingdom and Germany each account for 4%, while Japan and Canada contribute 3%. Interestingly, Brazil ranks seventh in generative AI app popularity, despite not being a top market for general mobile consumer spending. Meanwhile, China Mainland lags behind, contributing less than 2% of global IAP revenue in this category.

For advertisers, generative AI is revolutionizing campaign development. AI-driven tools now enable dynamic ad creation, personalized content, and real-time optimization, making ads more engaging and relevant to users’ preferences and behavior patterns.

Mobile Ad Automation and Personalization

Automation technology continues to enhance mobile ad delivery. AI algorithms can automate campaign management, optimizing bids, budgets, and targeting strategies with minimal human intervention. Moreover, platforms are now capable of offering hyper-personalized ad experiences, using machine learning to predict user needs and serve ads that resonate more effectively.

For instance, programmatic ad platforms are incorporating predictive modeling to determine the optimal time and format to display an ad, reducing wasted impressions and increasing return on ad spend (ROAS).

Augmented Reality (AR) Integration in Ads

As AR technology becomes more sophisticated, augmented reality advertising is gaining traction.

Mobile apps and social platforms now offer AR-based interactive ads that allow users to virtually try on products, view 3D models, or participate in immersive brand experiences. Platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok are leading this trend, pushing brands to integrate AR elements for higher engagement rates and conversion.

5G and Faster Mobile Networks

The widespread adoption of 5G is accelerating content consumption on mobile devices. With faster data speeds, users can stream high-resolution videos and interact with complex app experiences without buffering. This improvement is enabling richer ad formats, such as interactive video ads and live streaming promotions, to become standard practices in mobile marketing.

AI-Driven Analytics for Advertiser Insights

Finally, advancements in AI-powered analytics are providing advertisers with unprecedented insights into user behavior. These tools can analyze massive data sets in real-time, identifying emerging trends, engagement spikes, and audience sentiment.

As a result, marketing teams can adjust their strategies on the fly, and ensure their campaigns stay relevant and effective.

Mobile Advertising Market Challenges and Risks

The mobile advertising market faces several challenges that require proactive strategies to mitigate their impact.

Ad Fraud

Fake clicks and impressions, often generated by bots, can distort campaign performance and inflate ad spend.

Advertisers are addressing this issue by using fraud detection systems, partnering with trusted ad networks, and monitoring traffic patterns to verify engagement.

Privacy Regulations and Data Usage

Data privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA have tightened restrictions on how businesses collect and use personal information. To build trust, advertisers must provide transparent privacy policies, offer users opt-out options, and find ways to balance compliance with personalized marketing.

The Challenge of Measuring ROI

Tracking return on investment (ROI) is difficult, especially for campaigns with long sales cycles or offline purchases.

For example, users might click an ad but complete their purchase in-store weeks later.

To address this, marketers use attribution models that connect ad interactions with eventual sales for a more accurate understanding of campaign performance.

Ad Fatigue and User Frustration

Users are increasingly frustrated by repetitive or irrelevant ads, which leads to ad fatigue and lower engagement.

Advertisers are countering this by refreshing ad creatives regularly and targeting varied audience segments to maintain interest. Monitoring engagement metrics helps signal when ad updates are needed.

These findings emphasize the need for more relevant, diverse, and user-friendly advertising to sustain engagement across platforms.

Mobile Advertising Market Predictions for 2025 and Beyond

The mobile advertising market will reach a pivotal stage in 2025, driven by technological breakthroughs, stricter privacy compliance, and evolving consumer behavior.

Here’s what you can expect to shape the industry this year.

Generative AI Will Become the Backbone of Ad Strategy

Generative AI will no longer be a tool for experimentation but a core pillar of mobile advertising.

AI will generate hyper-personalized content faster and at scale, improving click-through rates and conversion rates significantly. Brands failing to adopt this technology risk being left behind as competitors deliver increasingly precise and relevant ad experiences.

The billion-dollar AI app industry, which grew by over $1.3 billion in 2024 (SensorTower), will fuel innovation in ad optimization, making AI-driven dynamic creative optimization (DCO) a must-have for mobile marketers.

AR Ads Will Achieve Mass Adoption

By 2025, augmented reality (AR) advertising will no longer be a novelty.

Retail and entertainment brands will lead the charge, embedding AR experiences like virtual try-ons and 3D product demos into mobile campaigns.

With 40% higher purchase intent (Deloitte, 2024) from AR formats, this technology will deliver tangible sales growth for early adopters.

Enhanced by 5G connectivity, AR ads will allow users to interact with products in real-time without delays, cementing AR as a standard component of ad strategies in high-engagement industries.

In-App Advertising Will Strengthen Its Dominance

In-app advertising will capture over 82% of mobile ad spending, continuing to outperform mobile web ads.

The appeal is clear: native ad formats provide a more immersive, less disruptive experience, improving both user engagement and conversion rates.

Major ad platforms will increasingly prioritize in-app interactive ads that seamlessly integrate with app content, while push notifications and personalized offers will drive higher engagement.

Short-Form Video Will Control Ad Spend

Short-form video ads will dominate mobile advertising strategies, pulling the largest share of budgets on platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels.

Micro-video campaigns will continue outperforming static formats due to their high engagement rates and rapid message delivery.

Advertisers will implement interactive video elements—such as polls, clickable overlays, and shoppable links—to deepen engagement.

Ad Fatigue Will Push Advertisers to Innovate

With 81% of mobile app users reporting frustration with repetitive ads (eMarketer, 2024), brands will no longer be able to rely on static or overly frequent messaging.

AI-driven creative refresh cycles will become standard practice, automatically updating ad visuals and messaging based on real-time performance metrics.

Advertisers will shift towards multi-segment targeting, ensuring that users are exposed to varied and relevant content. Brands that fail to address ad fatigue will face declining engagement rates and higher churn in mobile app environments.

Privacy-Driven Strategies Will Redefine Targeting

As privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA tighten data use regulations, first-party data strategies will become non-negotiable. Companies will need to invest heavily in data aggregation and consent-based marketing to sustain ad personalization without breaching compliance.

Expect privacy-first ad networks and tools offering privacy-preserving targeting to see rapid adoption, reshaping how campaigns are designed and optimized.

Businesses clinging to outdated third-party data practices will struggle to maintain relevance.

Advanced Attribution Will Solve ROI Blind Spots

Measuring return on investment (ROI) for complex, multi-touch campaigns will improve with the rise of real-time cross-channel attribution models.

These models will link in-app engagement to offline conversions, solving longstanding challenges in campaigns with long sales cycles.

Marketers will have better tools to analyze offline behavior—such as in-store purchases—allowing them to make more data-driven decisions and reallocate ad spend efficiently.

Final Thoughts on the Mobile Advertising Market

The mobile advertising market in 2025 will demand agility and innovation.

Generative AI, augmented reality, and real-time attribution models are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. At the same time, privacy laws and user expectations will force advertisers to rethink their strategies to maintain relevance and trust.

The key to success lies in understanding these shifts early and acting decisively.

Advertisers who leverage cutting-edge tools, prioritize user experience, and stay responsive to emerging trends in the mobile advertising market will secure their place at the forefront.

Those who don’t will struggle to keep up.

If you need help with your mobile ad campaigns, make sure to reach out.

Sources

• data.ai, now part of SensorTower. State of Mobile Report, 2025
• data.ai, now part of SensorTower. State of Mobile Report, 2024
• data.ai, now part of SensorTower. State of Mobile Report, 2023
• Imarc Group, 2025
• Statista, In-App Advertising, 2025
• Singular, 2025
• eMarketer, Mobile advertising spend, 2025
• eMarketer, In-Game Revenue Forecast 2023 – 2028
• eMarketer, Mobile App Ads Most Frustrating to Consumers, 2024