US mobile ad spending to soar - eMarketer

New York — Research firm eMarketer expects spending on mobile advertisements to hit nearly $9.6bn in the US this year, up from $4.4bn in 2012 and from less than $1.6bn in 2011.

Mobile ads now represent nearly 23% of the money companies spend on digital advertising, or ads people see on their computers, tablets and mobile phones. That's up from about 12% last year and less than 5% in 2011.

Facebook, which began showing mobile ads in 2012 and Google, which has by far the biggest share of the digital advertising market, account for much of this growth.

EMarketer expects Facebook to surpass Microsoft and Yahoo! when it comes to digital ad revenue this year, behind only Google.