Up to 79% of mobile data downloads may be from ads
According to a study by Enders Analysis, advertising could account for about half of data usage for users viewing articles on smartphones. The study looked at six popular publishers, with and without an ad-blocker, and found that between 18% and 79% of the data downloaded was from ads. In addition, between 6% and 68% of the downloaded data was from Javascript. Mobile data usage became more important to the ad-blocking debate when mobile operator Three decided to work with Shine to implement ad-blocking at a network level. 

Advertising could account for about half of data usage for people reading articles on their smartphones, according to a study by Enders Analysis.

The small-scale study looked at six unnamed “popular publishers”, both with and without an adblocker, and found that anywhere between 18% and 79% of the data downloaded was from ads.

In addition, anywhere between 6% and 68% of the downloaded data was from JavaScript, which is used to deliver more interactive elements of both editorial and advertising on pages.

The report said: “On the basis of this investigation, an estimate that says advertising accounts for half of all data used by publisher pages on iPhones does not look unreasonable. Publisher mobile pages are bloated, and advertising is an enormous part of that.”

Mobile data usage has become more central to the debate about ad blocking since mobile operator Three announced it was working with the Israeli company Shine to implement ad blocking at a network level for its customers.

Three’s parent company is Hutchison Whampoa, which is run by Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, who through his Horizon Ventures investment firm also holds a 0.8% stake in Facebook.

The Enders study was part of a broader report on adblocking, which said the phenomenon had “the potential to fatally undermine the business models of media owners that depend on advertising”.



The report said that although estimates of the scale of adblocking are hazy, estimates that 10% to 20% of UK web users used it were in the right region, and at least on desktop the rate of adblocking is growing fast. It describes the main drivers as security, privacy, data limits and annoying ad formats.

Publishers are taking a number of steps to address adblocking, including optimising websites, adopting less intrusive ad formats and asking readers to switch off adblockers to support content they are consuming.

Tackling the high data usage from advertising and mobile pages is also a core goal of programmes such as Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages and Facebook Instant Articles, which offer faster and smaller downloads of articles. However, publishers are concerned about increasing reliance on the two tech giants, which compete for ad revenue.

However, the report said that legal moves against what the culture secretary, John Whittingdale, has described as a “protection racket”, in reference to companies that charge advertisers and publishers to deliver “acceptable” ads, would not solve the problems driving people to block ads.