Publication date: 26 Aug 2020

In the second quarter 2020, global mobile ad spending rose 71% year-on-year and 8% quarter-on-quarter, according to PubMatic’s Q2 2020 Quarterly Mobile Index report.

• While mobile advertising fell after the outset of the coronavirus pandemic in March, it recovered more quickly than desktop advertising, and continued growing until the very end of June.
• Mobile ad spending growth is robust across all regions, but the Asia-Pacific region saw sharper increases over last quarter. This is likely due to the continual rise in cost of advertising and the earlier timing of the pandemic-related recovery in the region.
• Marketers continue to regard mobile as an effective channel to reach audiences. With increased mobile media consumption during the pandemic, mobile ad engagement rose 15%.
• Mobile video ad spending grew 116% over pre-pandemic levels. The growth, however, wasn’t steady: spending contracted sharply in the beginning of spring.
• Though there was a rise in TV watching during the pandemic, advertisers were unwilling to invest in traditional ad-serving on TV. A 2.5% pre-pandemic increase in global TV ad spending was followed by a 13.8% fall after the outset of the pandemic. Digital video ad spending was doing well both before and after the outset, with a respective growth of 20.2% and 5%.