Chart: Ad-Blockers Usage Hits Double-Digits Worldwide

In its Digital News Report 2016, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism shared a look into ad-blocking trends around the globe.

Ad-blockers pose a big problem for online publishers, which are seeing their ad revenues dwindled substantially on the back of these add-ons and applications.

The Digital News Report provided some other interesting conclusions about ad-blockers usage. For instance, ad-blockers are particularly popular among people under 35 years of age, and among people in Poland, Greece and France. Moreover, most of the people who have ever downloaded a blocker are using them habitually. This suggests that, once users try an ad-blocker, they rarely go back to an ad-full Internet experience.

Related Link: These Network And Cable TV Channels Are Getting Hit Hardest In 2016

Ad-blockers’ popularity is substantially lower in Japan, where only 10 percent of online customers use one, versus 38 percent in Poland. Eight percent of smartphone holders currently use a blocker, but about 1/3 of respondents said they planned to install one in the next year.

“There is not one single reason for ad-blocking,” the research note said. “Mostly it reflects unhappiness with the volume and distracting nature of advertising but there are strong privacy concerns in the Netherlands and Spain. Only around one in ten is worried about the impact of advertisements on data plans or battery life on their smartphones.”

Below is a chart illustrating the proportion of people using ad-blocking software in selected countries.