A number of 22 percent of smartphone users worldwide are blocking adverts on the mobile web, according to a news report from Page Fair. The trend is becoming more prominent in Asian markets, while numbers in North America and Europe represent only 3.3 percent of all acquisition.
China, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia are the countries leading the adoption of adblocking software. 36% of smartphone users in Asia and the Pacific are currently banning adverts from the web, said PageFair and Priori Data.
By March 2016, there were 408 million people using an ad blocking mobile browser, which doubles numbers registered during 2015. In other words, one out of five smartphone users has opted to block adverts. Most of them are owners of Android devices.
According to PageFair, iOS has only registered 4.5 million downloads of content blocking apps.
Markets in North America and Europe are only responsible for 14 million adblocking browser downloads. However, the global growth between January 2015 and January 2016 has been of 90 percent worldwide.
The most popular ad blocking browsers are UC Browser, Adblock Plus, and Brave, which block adverts on web pages. Other apps such as Firefox and Opera Mini can also be set to block ads. PageFair has found that blocking advertising effectively reduces data costs.
Emerging markets may be interested in adblocking browsers
Emerging markets in China and India are rapidly acquiring smartphone devices. Both countries account for 67 percent of all downloads of adblocking browsers. PageFair predicted that this new trend could present a “serious threat” for journalism sites in those markets.
A major segment of users in Asia may be accessing journalism sites using expensive or slow mobile connections. PageFair said that the usage of adblocking browsers will continue to increase as manufacturers include them as a built-in feature in devices.
A theory proposes that adblocking browsers significantly increase page speed and reduce bandwidth consumption, which may be a great advantage for people where data infrastructure is not developed.
PageFair has calculated than an estimated 30 million people are blocking adverts at Firefox for Android, while 24 million people may be doing the same with Opera Mini. The research organization concluded that adblocking acquisition will continue to increase in places where Internet connections are slow or expensive.
“Adblocking browsers will continue to grow wherever data costs are high. The next billion internet users will come online via low bandwidth, relatively expensive mobile connections. With readily-available mobile ad blocking technologies, the next billion internet users may be invisible to digital marketers,” said PageFair.
India to surpass the U.S. in smartphone sales. Mobile operators to offer adblocking technology
According to research firm Counterpoint, India is about to overcome the United States in smartphone sales. An estimated 220 million people will own a smartphone in India by the end of 2016, given that state laws are encouraging tech manufacturers to assemble devices in the country.
Ad blocking technology is not only being approached by software developers. The U.K. mobile operator Three announced last week new strategies to block adverts from mobile devices. The company would call 500,000 users to offer them a 24-hour free trial of ad blocking technology.
Three CEO Tom Malleschitz has proposed that advertisers should pay for data costs when sending notifications to users. He also added that privacy and security of users should be the top priority while advertisers should not use cookies to obtain data without consent.
Source: PageFair Report