This One Chart Shows That Advertisers Are Finally Catching Up With The Exponential Growth Of Mobile

For years now, mobile marketers have lamented that advertising budgets do not reflect the increasing amount of time consumers spend looking at their mobile phones and tablets.

In 2011, for instance, consumers spent 23% of their media viewing time on mobile, but advertisers devoted just 1% of their budgets to smartphones and tablets.

However, a new report from eMarketer reveals that the shift to mobile advertising is finally starting to take shape. In it, eMarketer found that U.S. mobile ad spending more than doubled from 2012 to 2013, going from $4.4 billion to $9.6 billion.

And as this chart shows, eMarketer expects mobile ad spending to eclipse the money spent on traditional desktop inventory in the U.S. as soon as 2017:

As you can see, the growth of desktop advertising in 2013 was fairly small, highlighting what eMarketer sees as a trend toward deceleration that will ultimately lead to desktop ad budgets shrinking by 2016.

EMarketer found that desktop and laptop advertising spend increased by 6.6% in 2012, but grew by just 1.7% this past year.

Finally, here's what eMarketer says you can expect to see from mobile advertising in 2014:

"Next year, eMarketer predicts, overall spending on desktop advertising will increase by just 0.41%, while mobile ad spending will grow a further 56.00% to $14.97 billion. By 2016, spending on mobile will rival desktop spending, and in 2017 it will blow past, posting $35.62 in ad spending compared to the desktop's $27.21 billion.

There are few remaining desktop ad formats that will see significant incremental increases in ad spending, notably branding-friendly categories like sponsorships and video.

Virtually all the spending growth going to search, banners and rich media ad formats, however, will go toward the mobile channel. Mobile search advertising spending will have grown 118.8% in 2013; mobile banner ad spending will have increased 155.22%; and mobile rich media ad growth will hit 95.89% in 2013, eMarketer estimates."