China Internet advertising exceeds US$12B in 2012

The Chinese online advertising market hit 75.3 billion yuan (US$12 billion) in 2012, but its growth will slow in the long term due to the maturity of the technology and the early development of the mobile online ad market.

In a statement on Thursday, Chinese research firm iResearch reported that the local market for online advertising grew 46.8 percent year-on-year in 2012, a slower growth compared with the 57.6 percent year-on-year growth experienced in 2011.

Growth for the online market in China will continue to slow in the upcoming years. iResearch predicted that the market will grow at 36 percent in 2013 to reach 102.39 billion yuan (US$16.3 billion), and at 34 percent in 2014 to reach 137.16 billion yuan (US$21.8 billion).

The research firm attributed the slowing growth to various reasons, including the maturity of the market and core technology, the mobile advertising market being in an early stage, and the slowing Chinese economy.

iResearch said that online search advertising continued to make up the largest portion of the market at 34 percent, up from 33.5 percent in 2011.

However, the share of advertisements on e-commerce platforms grew the most, up 5.8 percentage points to 23.3 percent in 2012. The growth of advertisements on independent video was highlighted as well, as it increased 0.6 percentage points to 7.7 percent.