NEW YORK: Digital advertising expenditure in Canada will grow 15% this year to reach C$4.36bn, according to a new forecast from eMarketer which highlights the speed at which video display is increasing.

The insights provider described this as "a solid growth rate for an advanced market", while adding that subsequent years would see a decline into single figures. By 2019 it estimated that digital adspend would be advancing at 7% and would total C$6.04bn.

Over the course of the next five years digital media's share of the total will increase from the current 34% to 41.7%.

Much of this rise will be driven by mobile, eMarketer reported. This year it will account for 11.6% of total ad spending, but by 2019 its share will reach 28.8%.

And display, it said, regardless of channel, is the fastest-growing digital format, not just this year when it will grow 18.4% but in every year out to 2019.

Within that, video is currently surging ahead at a rate of 23%, compared to traditional display's 18.4%.

And while video will continue to outpace other formats in 2016, the following year it will slow to a growth rate of 10.4% and slip behind traditional display on 10.4%.

Overall, digital display accounts for 42.1% of digital ad spending and it continues to gain on search, where growth rates are rather slower.

In 2015, search is expected to grow at 13.7%, almost four points less than display, but this gap will narrow in coming years to less than two points in 2019.

The current ratio of display advertising on desktop versus mobile will also be reversed during the next five years. This year, almost 62% of digital display spending will go on desktop ads (38% mobile), but that will fall to 29% by 2019 (71% mobile).

Data sourced from eMarketer; additional content by Warc staff