Facebook has emerged as the number one platform for display advertising in the US, and it’s expected to generate well over $2bn in revenue from display advertising in 2011.
The research was carried out by eMarketer, and this means that Facebook will edge past Yahoo into pole position. It also means that Facebook has increased its revenue by over 80% in the last year, which is actually a drop in its display-ad growth.
The social networking behemoth recorded “triple-digit” display-ad growth in 2009 and 2010, and this slowing in growth is likely to continue into next year, where it’s estimated that the growth will fall to less than a third.
But the fact that Facebook is now in number one spot is a telling sign for other digital companies too, with Yahoo now falling to number 4, behind Google and Microsoft. Yahoo is still in second place in terms of total revenue, with 13.1% market share, compared with Facebook’s 17.7%.
Each of the top 5 companies increased their revenue display ad revenue in the past year as outlined in this table, courtesy of eMarketer:
David Hallerman, principal analyst at eMarketer, said:
“Facebook’s supreme popularity—both in terms of numbers of people and amount of time they spend there—creates a plethora of display ad impressions, mainly for its unique form of banners. And that popularity is also boosting what advertisers will pay for its display ads.”
Google recently bought display ad optimization firm Admeld, a sign that Google will be upping the pressure on Facebook in the display-ad sphere, so it will be interesting to see how these figures actually pan out over the next couple of years.
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