Facebook-Google Duopoly Won’t Crack This Year

The digital duopoly of Facebook and Google is holding strong, according to our latest forecast for US digital ad spending.

In February, we estimated that the duopoly’s share of the US digital ad market would see a small decline in 2019 and also in 2020. But both Facebook and Google outperformed our expectations in H1 2019. We now estimate the two companies will increase their slice of the pie this year, dipping slightly in 2020, and pick up share once again in 2021.

Digital ad market consolidation shows little sign of stopping. Rather than disrupting the duopoly, Amazon’s ad business looks to have joined it as a third giant, growing its share primarily from the long tail. By the end of next year, nearly 70% of US digital ad dollars will end up with one of the three leading ad sellers.