The Wall Street Journal reports that a PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that in 2009, online ad revenues continued to climb to $24.2 billion, while print ads fell 28.6% to $24.8 billion.
Online ads are expected to rake in $34.4 billion by 2014, which means print ads should dip below their online counterparts in a matter of months. PWC’s figures for online revenues don’t include mobile advertisements, which they believe will nearly quadruple in the next four years from $414 million to $1.6 billion.
“Over the next five years digital technologies will progressively increase their impact across all segments of entertainment and media as digital transformation continues to expand and escalate,” a press release from PWC said. “The uncertain economic background has done nothing to slow the pace of change, which has been far quicker than predicted 12 months ago. It is clear that the consumer is firmly in the driving seat of these changes.”
According to the report, increased access to broadband has played a large role in helping boost online ad revenues. The Wall Street Journal reports that broadband penetration in the U.S. nearly doubled from 34% in 2005 to 64% in 2010 thanks partly to $7.2 billion in federal stimulus money put towards expanding broadband access.
Additionally, PricewaterhouseCoopers expects that global consumer spending on Internet access will increase from $228 billion 2009 to $351 billion in 2014.
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