eMarketer is forecasting that mobile video advertising will nearly quadruple in size from $1.44 billion in 2014 to $5.44 billion in 2018. The forecast is part of eMarketer's new "US Mobile Video Advertising 2014" report which eMarketer is offering for exclusive, complimentary download to VideoNuze readers.  

At last week's VideoNuze Online Video Ad Summit, eMarketer's Principal Analyst David Hallerman previewed some of the data in his opening presentation. The session was video-recorded and will be available soon. In the meantime, Beet.tv interviewed David at the Ad Summit and I've embedded the video below.

The $5.44 billion forecast also means that mobile video advertising will be over 44% of the total online video advertising market, which eMarketer estimates will grow to $12.3 billion by 2018 from $5.9 billion in 2014. For perspective, eMarketer estimates that in 2014, mobile video advertising will account for roughly 25% of the total online video advertising market.

The most significant driver of the forecast is growing adoption of mobile devices and viewership on them. eMarketer believes video viewers on smartphones will jump from 89 million in 2014 to 125.4 million in 2018, while tablet viewers will increase from 113.4 million in 2014 to 149 million in 2018.

eMarketer interviewed many industry executives for the new report and found, among other things, that the dominant advertising model for mobile video today is impression-based (CPM). It also found that performance metrics for evaluating the success of mobile video ad campaigns are still in their infancy. But as these develop, eMarketer expects that performance-based pricing models will gain share.

The report also includes data on mobile video ad formats, the impact of delivery quality, how viewers connect to watch mobile video, differences between smartphone and tablet video viewing, comparisons of in-app vs. mobile web video and the role of measurement, among other things.

Download the complimentary "US Mobile Video Advertising 2014" report now.