European video ad spend to grow 30% this year

European video ad spend will grow by more than 30% year-over-year in 2015 and will account for half of all EU online display advertising spend by 2020, according to Forrester.

The research firm predicts that online video ad spend will rise at a 26.4% compound annual growth rate over the next five years.

However, despite this, Forrester said that mobile video viewing adoption in Europe is growing “much more slowly than anticipated”, with just 14% of EU consumers regularly watching video on a mobile phone, compared with 32% on a PC and 28% on a tablet.

“Mobile video consumption is lowest in the UK at 8% and France at 9%,” said Forrester.

It added that in-stream video ads are the most widespread means of monetising online video content in Europe, but are also the most unpopular ad format with 53% of EU consumers actively avoiding ads before or during online videos.

For the research, Forrester assessed 50 high-traffic publisher sites in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy and compared data from a survey of 16,000 EU consumers with the findings of similar, historical studies.