We expect the adoption of ad-blockers will follow a different pattern to that for PCs, for which ad-blocking Bottom Line has been available for years. As of mid-2015, there were an estimated 200 million monthly active users of When ad-blockers first went on sale they ad-blockers on PCs globally, with 77 million active users stormed to the top of the app store charts 180 in the first weekend181. Subsequently sales in Europe and 45 million in the US alone . The focus 182 on app-based usage on a mobile device is likely to be have fallen steadily . However this should a key reason why the relatively large-scale adoption of not be a cause for complacency. There is ad-blocking technology that has been experienced on the possibility of a further wave of interest PCs will not be replicated on mobile. in ad-blocking, which could lead to a more significant wave of adoption. While we do not expect the impact of mobile ad-blocking in 2016 to be significant relative to the Online publishers that rely on advertising for overall size of the market, its impact is likely to be felt revenues should use the threat of ad-blocking disproportionately. to consider how best to enable easy payment for their content and not provide a vast array Smaller online-only publishers that rely entirely on of consumer data as a condition of being advertising revenues and lack other forms of income, able to contribute a dollar, or to insist on such as subscription, may be particularly affected. subscription. They may not have the resource to be able to optimize their sites to load fast, while still delivering advertising. The mobile advertising industry should also 183. They may also lack the funding to create an app within keep an eye on network-level ad-blocking which ads could be delivered outside of the reach of While in some markets this may be considered ad-blockers. a contravention of net neutrality principles, regulation may change to enable this184. It may also be the case that the most impacted news outlets are those focused on tech and gaming news, The industry should also anticipate whose audience is most aware of ad-blockers and most how prevalent consumer inertia can be. likely to have deployed them for their PC-based usage. For example, hundreds of millions of mobile users have been able to access an ad-free, text-only mode for reading content for years, but few have chosen to do so185. However we also anticipate that many mobile users would deploy their own form of organic ad-blocking by simply ignoring mobile websites with what they consider to be excessive advertising content. So even if ad-blockers are not popular, avoidance of ad-heavy sites may still be common. Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2016 29