While ad blocking is more widespread in the Asia Pacific region, it continues to grow in North America and Europe, increasing the pressure on marketers to address user concerns about mobile ads, according to the report, Adblocking Goes Mobile. Key findings include that in-application ads on platforms such as Spotify, Apple News and CNN are vulnerable to adblocking and  that it is possible to block suggested content in Facebook and Instagram. 

?In Asia we are seeing large numbers,? said Dr. Johnny Ryan, head of ecosystem at PageFair. ?In the West we are seeing early adopters start to take up mobile ad blocking. 

?One surprising finding is that while Apple's content blockers were over hyped, mobile browsers that ad block by default were ignored, and yet grew to 400-million-plus monthly users,? he said. 

?Another is that ads in-app and on walled garden platforms like Facebook are no longer invulnerable to ad blocking. That will come as some surprise to many marketers.?

The majority of ad blocking on mobile is happening through browsers that restrict ads by default. However, the report reveals growing use of ad blocking apps. 

Additionally, content blocking and in-app ad blocking apps have been downloaded 4.9 million times from the Apple and Android app stores since September 2014 in Europe and North America. 

There are differences between North America and Europe when it comes to restricting ads on mobile.  

Ad blocking browsers are more than twice as popular in Europe than in North America while content blocking apps are three times more popular in North America than in Europe. 

Apple?s introduction of content blocking received a lot of attention. However, only 2 percent of Apple device users in the U.S., or 1.9 million, have downloaded a content blocking app as of March 2016. 

Browser-based ad blocking is particularly popular in emerging markets such as China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan where people are coming online for the first time on mobile devices and tend to have low bandwidth, relatively expensive data connections. 

The report found that 36 percent of smartphone users in Asia-Pacific are currently restricting ads on the mobile Web. In India and Indonesia, the number climbs to more than 60 percent.  

In the Europe and North America, there were 14 million active users of ad blocking browsers as of March 2016. 

One key takeaway from the report is that marketers need to be more responsive to mobile users? needs than ever. This is one reason why marketers are increasingly focused on native ads, sponsored content, branded games and other more organic experiences. 

?What these figures show is that the blocked Web - that part of the Web where users are blocking ads - is growing,? Dr. Ryan said. ?This blocked Web is a potentially valuable space for marketers, provided they approach it respectfully.?