Report: Google Generates as Much Ad Revenue as Entire Global Print Advertising Market

According to a new PriceWaterhouseCoopers Entertainment and Media Global Outlook report, just five tech companies topped by Google dominate nearly all online advertising. Of those five, three are primarily advertising in China.

According to the new PriceWaterhouseCoopers Entertainment and Media Global Outlook report published by Axios, two-thirds of all global ad dollars will go to the five major tech companies; Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba. Approximately 50 percent of online advertising revenue is collected by Google and Facebook in a duopoly that has been noted by groups such as Press Gazette, a British media trade magazine dedicated to journalism that recently began a campaign to highlight the advertising duopoly that Facebook and Google have established.

This duopoly is not expected to end anytime soon, Digital Content Next, the premium publishers association, noted that Google and Facebook combined are expected to take home 83 percent of every new ad dollar. In China, companies such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent control over 60 percent of the Chinese advertising market and now account for 15 percent of all online advertising worldwide. Staggeringly, Google’s ad revenue alone is worth nearly the same as all print advertisement revenue worldwide, while Facebook’s ad revenue nearly beats all radio advertising revenue globally.

The twelve companies just behind the big five advertising giants are Yahoo! Microsoft, Linkedin, IAC, Verizon, Amazon, Pandora, Twitter, Yelp, Snapchat, Sina, and Sohu. These companies generate approximately half of the advertising revenue that Google generates every year. The reason for the development of this duopoly is in part down to the lack of regulation in online advertising, a point that Press Gazette made when launching their campaign in April.

“Imagine if two news publishers dominated digital media in the way that Facebook and Google do,” stated Press Gazette. “The Government would not allow such a duopoly to stand. Campaigners would call for them to be broken up in the name of media plurality.” Press Gazette continued to say, “There is no simple solution, but broadly we are seeking a fairer deal between news publishers and the digital giants – one which fairly rewards the creators of the content on which these platforms rely.”

“We want Google and Facebook to become more responsible digital citizens, acting in a way that allows diverse digital news sources rather than gorging themselves on all the available digital advertising in a way which will lead smaller players to starve.”