Ad blockers have been installed on a little more than one-fifth of the world's smartphones based on a new report. It shows online ad blocking is spreading fast, which is having a major effect on publishers and other sites that rely on advertisements to earn revenue and stay in business. The annual study was sponsored by anti-ad blocking startup PageFair and software company Adobe.
This year's report tracked the move of ad-blocking tools from desktop computers to smartphones. It notes that ad blocking on smartphones has doubled since last year, according to Mashable.
Mobile ad blockers have not become widely used in the United States and Europe. In fact, there are only 14 million mobile browser users in Europe, and just 2.3 million in the United States.
However, the opposite is true in Asia. Around 93 of ad-blocking browsers are used on mobile devices in countries such as China and India.
This is greatly due to the Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba. The report notes that the company's ad-free web surfing app named UC Browser has more users than the total from all other ad blocking tools, such as Adblock Plus.
UC Browser now has offices in key mobile ad-blocking nations including China, India, Indonesia, and Russia. It also has plans to expand its business.
Mobile phone users have spiked in such emerging nations during the past few years. In such counties mobile phones are frequently the only method of Internet access. Due to low bandwidth connections smartphone owners often want to get rid of bandwidth hogs such as mobile ads.
Europe and the US not only have fewer mobile ad-blocker users than Asia but also desktop browser users. More Europeans than Americans use the ad-blocking tools.
However, Americans are not inexorably happy about mobile ads. Last month a study by Optimal.com and Wells Fargo showed that almost half of US smartphone owners without ad blockers did not know they could download the software. In addition, most said that they hate mobile ads more than desktop advertisements.
In related news, a privacy activist has filed complaints with European Union (EU) regulators against companies that stop ad-blocking software, according to Financial Times. Alexander Hanff argues the EU's "cookie directive" makes such actions illegal.
Here's a video on ad blockers and online advertising: