Market size of mobile advertising in China 2014-2025

China is one of the key drivers of global mobile ad spending. In 2023, the market size of the Chinese mobile advertising industry increased by 2.7 percent to approximately 465 billion yuan. With an enormous user base turning to “mobile-first” and a vibrant digital advertising landscape, China’s mobile ad market size was expected to exceed 480 yuan by 2025. 

Advertising in China: the digital age

As of 2021, digital advertising accounted for about 80 percent of China’s total media ad expenditure. The Chinese tech titans - Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, and ByteDance – are the major driving forces in this rapidly growing market. The e-commerce giant Alibaba would continuously dominate the sector in 2020, whereas the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created a significant impact on digital ad platforms.

The dark side of the fairy tale

Mobile advertising made up for the majority of digital ad spending in China. Having established itself as an indispensable instant messaging app in China, Tencent’s WeChat has become one of the largest mobile ad platforms. Taking the current circumstances of coronavirus into consideration, the total amount spent on mobile ads would exceed 150 billion U.S. dollars by the year 2024. Despite the huge market opportunity, advertisers need to be aware of online ad fraud in China, given that the prevalence of bots generating invalid ad traffic is higher than the global average.