According to a recent research from BIA/Kelsey mobile has surpassed desktop in terms of local search query volume, compared to last year. The market research firm concluded that 66.5 million local search queries were carried out via mobile devices, whereas the figures for desktop were around 65.6 million.
It has also been speculated that by the end of this year, the numbers will change even more significantly: desktop will decline to 64.6 million, whereas mobile search queries may rise up to 81.8 million.
BIA/Kelsey have also anticipated that by 2019 local desktop searches would be swinging around 62.3 billion whereas mobile search queries would rise to 141.9 billion. The trend of growth in mobile searches is speculated to continue over the next five years, with desktop searches predicted to decline by about 500,000 each year. Whereas mobile will jump to 13 billion queries by next year alone.
Mobile search spend is following suit with the increase in mobile searches, albeit less emphatically. In 2014, desktop accounted for $14.30 billion of U.S. search ad spending, while mobile made up $8.72 of the total. By the end of this year, the numbers will be much closer together: $12.82 billion for desktop and $12.85 for mobile, according to March research from eMarketer.
eMarketer has also predicted that in two years, desktop will be $9.12 billion of the ad spend share and mobile will be more than double that, with $21.73 billion. BIA/Kelsey got more specific on ad spend and estimated last month that mobile would increase 56 percent to make up $6.7 billion of local ad spend. That's 37 percent of the total; by 2019, mobile is expected to nearly triple to $18.2 billion.
