• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, May 31, 2017

Only 48% of U.S. mobile device owners know they can block mobile ads -- and while mobile ad blocking in the U.S. and the European Union is largely absent, in the Asia Pacific region it accounts for 94% of mobile ad-blocking growth, according to a new survey from EYEO's Adblock Plus conducted by GlobalWebIndex.

Adblock Plus said it was curious why users in Europe and North America don’t block ads on their mobile devices with the same enthusiasm they use on their laptops or desktops. The company said most people neither knew about nor used mobile ad blockers.

Among the key findings in the survey:

--Ad blocking on mobile devices occurs less frequently than on PCs: While more than 80% of people surveyed own a mobile device, only 15% of Internet device owners block ads on their mobile devices. Narrowed down to current ad blocker users, the number is just 22%.  By comparison, 68% of these users block ads on their laptops.

--Users are not aware they can block ads on mobile devices: The survey found that 48% of device owners in the U.S. are aware that they can block ads on their mobile devices. Looking at only those users who have not blocked ads on mobile, six in 10 are unaware of the possibility.

--Consumers remain frustrated with the state of online advertising: One in three mobile users say they see too many ads when browsing. Almost 50% of respondents said they want to block all ads on their mobile devices.

The survey also found that 14% of smartphone owners use an additional browser on their phone. Mobile owners say the main reason for choosing a browser is the brand, and more than three in four of those who know about mobile ad blocking can’t name an app or browser that would allow them to do so.

And seven out of 10 people who have either blocked an ad on their phone or know they can, said that they see blocking intrusive ads as a big advantage. Almost six in 10 said they considered privacy to be a benefit of blocking mobile ads; more than half said that reducing data usage was a benefit.

Adblock Plus said once people have tried an ad blocker on their phones, they’ve immediately recognized the benefits.

GlobalWebIndex tsurveyed 1,011 users in the U.S.: 596 women and 415 men.