• by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, July 29, 2016

A whitepaper released this month by Twitter’s MoPub indicates that mobile programmatic advertising has been relatively slow to develop in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region — especially compared to the U.S., where more than $14.8 billion mobile ad dollars are expected to go through programmatic channels this year, according to eMarketer data.

But mobile programmatic's lag in APAC may be about to change. MoPub said it’s seen strong growth in both supply and demand in APAC over the past year on the MoPub Marketplace, its mobile programmatic exchange. In fact, MoPub said, “mobile programmatic has become Asia-Pacific’s worst kept secret — and that’s a good thing.” Why? Because it’s where ad dollars are moving. It maintained that if marketers want to get ahead of the curve, the time to embrace mobile programmatic is now on both the buy and sell sides.

MoPub said that in one year, it’s seen a 73% increase in impressions and a 152% increase in the number of auctions on the MoPub Marketplace in APAC.

As far as mobile programmatic inventory in APAC, in Q1 2016, MoPub saw 127% more on its network vs. Q1 2015. And with respect to ad spend, there was a 104% increase in Q1 2016 vs. Q1 2015. Growth in the region was focused on Korea (314%), Japan (193%), Indonesia (146%), and China (142%).

It makes sense that mobile programmatic is growing in APAC,  following trends in the U.S. and elsewhere, since mobile is rapidly becoming the first screen.