Mobile advertising is swiftly becoming a two-horse race.
According to the latest eMarketer forecast, released on Wednesday morning, mobile ad spending worldwide grew by 105% in 2013 and is on pace to expand to $31.5 billion this year. And the two Internet giants, Google and Facebook, are increasingly taking the lion's share---the pair netted 67% of mobile ad revenues last year, up from 58% in 2012.
Today's report marks yet another adjustment from the research firm, as mobile ad dollars balloon far faster than expected. The final spending figure of $18 billion is nearly double the firm's estimates from just four months ago.
Much of the tweaking is due to Facebook, whose share of net revenues more than tripled, to 18%, in 2013, only its second year in the mobile ad business.
During 2014, Facebook is projected to claim 22% of all mobile ad bookings, with revenues of $6.82 billion. In December, 2012, eMarketer predicted the social network's 2014 mobile net revenues would barely topple $1 billion.
By the end of this year, Facebook will also be a majority mobile company. Its share of net revenues from mobile reached 45% last year, according to eMarketer's internal calculations. This year, it's projected to cross 63%.