India is fourth-largest consumer of mobile video ads: Report

India is the fourth-largest consumer of mobile video ads, and despite accounting for only 3 per cent global spends on mobile video ads, Indians watch more video ads on their mobile devices than most of the world, says a recent research report by InMobi.

The report by the Singapore-based global mobile advertising and discovery platform, which explores the popularity and performance of mobile video ads around the world, looks at data from the inMobi network for January-December 2017.

Speaking to Business Today, Vasuta Agarwal, Vice President & GM, India, InMobi, said videos will be the dominant form of advertising in the coming year-and-a-half.

She added that the demographics of video audience in India had also started to shift and people besides the age group of 18-35, and from beyond Tier-1 cities, are using the medium increasingly. "Going ahead, a lot of Internet traffic will be video. So, if users are all present on video, there is no option for the advertiser but to move to video," she added.

According to the report, in 2018, another 31 per cent of advertisers plan to invest in mobile video and brands across industry verticals.

The report also reveals trends about programmatic advertising. Programmatic advertising is an automated way of buying advertisements online. The report claims that in India, advertisers are increasingly spending via programmatic channels for video ads, recording over 10x growth in just one year.

"Programmatic advertising gives much more control and transparency to the advertiser, because they know what kind of ads they are buying, where are they buying, placement of ads. It is a very real time, transparent way of advertising," Agarwal said.

Globally, in 2017, Fortune 500 brands made up over 90 per cent of mobile programmatic ad spend, the report says. According to Agarwal, programmatic advertising would completely transform digital advertising in the coming years

"It will grow by leaps and bounds this year. So far, advertisers in the FMCG space or in the e-commerce space are the ones who are leading the way but others will also jump into the arena very quickly and that will help the growth of the programmatic in the digital landscape."