MOSCOW: Driven by rapid growth in Russia, adspend in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region is forecast to reach almost $23bn this year, according to the latest projections from eMarketer.

Also identifying significant increases for spending on digital, the online market research firm's Global Media Intelligence Report – compiled in partnership with Starcom MediaVest Group, the media agency network – estimated that the region's total media ad spending will rise 8% to $22.67bn in 2013, up from $20.63bn in 2008.

Russia is expected to report year on year growth of 13% for all-media adspend.

Meanwhile, digital spending in the CEE region as a whole is expected to rise 23% to $4.55bn this year, but Russia will account for 44.1% of the total and its share is expected to grow further to 45.3% by 2017.

Mobile internet ad spending is also witnessing robust growth with Russia dominant in this sector, too. The nation's 38.3% share of regional mobile spending is worth $62.1m out of a total regional spend of $162.4m, which equates to growth of 130% since 2012.

The mobile market is expected to grow to $822.3m in 2017, up from $609.1m in 2016 and $423m in 2015.

Elsewhere, the eMarketer report also found that the region now has 233m internet users, up from 142.5m in 2008, as well as 125.7m smartphone users, compared to 16.4m in 2009.

In all, 173.6m people use social networks, up from 71.6m in 2008, and mobile phone users account for 77.2% of the region's population, compared to 66.9% in 2009.

Data sourced from eMarketer; additional content by Warc staff