The explosion in popularity of smartphones, tablets and the app revolution has fuelled a more than doubling in mobile advertising to £500m this year – just four years after the sector struggled to attract £25m, The Guardian reports.

UK mobile advertising grew a staggering 132% in the first six months of this year to £181.5m, according to the latest Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Breakneck growth is continuing in the second half – fuelled by the popularity of Apple and Google's app stores as smartphone ownership nears 60% of the UK's adult population – with forecasts putting UK mobile spend at as much as £511m for the full year.

In 2011, the IAB put mobile ad spend at £203m.

Mobile display and video advertising almost doubled in the first six months this year to £50m, with mobile search soaring by more than 150% to £132m.

Mobile search accounts for almost three-quarters of all UK mobile ad spend.

Total UK internet advertising spend rose 12.6% year on year in the first six months to £2.59bn, comfortably on track to pass £5bn for the year. The total digital display advertising market, including mobile, rose 10.6% in the first half to £591m.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the rise of digital display advertising, albeit not on mobile, has been Facebook. Enders Analysis puts Facebook UK's full-year ad revenues at £236m, a healthy 35% year-on-year rise.

The biggest segment of the internet advertising market continues to be paid-for searches, which are dominated by Google.

Spend on search advertising rose 16% in the first half to crack £1.5bn, a 60% share of the overall market.