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Mobile ad blocking doubled globally

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Riddhi Sharma
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As per a new research on global mobile ad blocking habits, more than one-fifth of the world's smartphone users now have an ad blocker.

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This annual study, conducted by anti-ad blocking startup PageFair and sponsored by Adobe is one of the most widely cited measures of the global ad blocking phenomenon. It shows that a whopping 21% of the world’s smartphone users are using mobile ad blocking browsers, which are mobile browsers that block ads by default. It does not stop there, nearly 9.6 million people have downloaded a particular app that has the capability of blocking suggested content and ads in Facebook and Instagram.

Despite the hype created around Apple launched “content blocking” app in September 2015 there were only 4.5 million downloads of it.

The most important finding of the report this year has been the migration of ad-blocking tools from desktops to smartphones, where they have nearly doubled in popularity in the last year, according to its analysis.

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For publishers and other websites that make their livelihoods off of online advertising, that's perhaps the most disconcerting finding from a new report that offers no shortage of bleak news on the scope and spread of online ad blocking.

The vast majority of mobile ad block users are concentrated in China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. However,reason behind in is the Chinese online shopping juggernaut Alibaba. It owns an ad-free web surfing app called UC Browser, which has more users than all other ad blocking tools combined, according to the report.

UC Browser has offices in China, India, Russia, Indonesia and other key mobile ad blocking countries, and it's looking to expand. The Mobile phone usage has shot high in these countries and other emerging nations over the past few years.

In emerging countries they are more likely to use mobile phones as their sole means of Internet access, particularly for browsing over lower bandwidth connections — which may help explain why they are more keen on ad blocking.