Market value of mobile advertising in Italy 2006-2020

Between 2006 and 2020, the market value of mobile advertising in Italy grew from 16 to 1,902 million euros. This steady growth was reported across the main formats of mobile advertising. In fact, the value of mobile video advertising increased from 59 million euros in 2015 to 665 million euros as of 2019. Also, mobile classified advertising (i.e. announcements on portals) grew from seven to 67 million euros over the same period.

Video advertising is the king

The reason why mobile video advertising became the most profitable format is that video content grabs users’ attention very easily. In a survey from 2019, 34 percent of Italian mobile surfers stated they paid attention to video ads displayed before or during the actual video they were watching. Other mobile advertising formats reported lowest rates, as less than 20 percent of respondents paid attention to banners.

Why mobile advertising matters

A glance at the number of Italian smartphone users gives the idea of how important mobile formats are for advertisers. By 2024, Italy is expected to count 47.57 million smartphone users. This might include even the use of internet media at home. In 2019, the mobile connection through smartphone or tablet made up 17 percent of the whole internet accesses at home, following broadband connection with 53 percent.