The percentage of Romanian internet users installing adblock programs on their desktop devices has more than doubled from 13.9% to 29.26% in the past year, according to the 2017 edition of the AdBlocking in Romania study.

The study was carried out by TailWind in partnership with Oriel, and with the support of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Romanian circulation bureau BRAT. Eighty-five Romanian sites, members of BRAT and IAB, took part in the study, which looked at both the adblocking numbers and at the feedback of users, gathered through questionnaires.

This year’s edition of the study surveyed for the first time the use of adblock programs on mobile devices and found 1.36% of users had such a program installed on their phone and 2.11% on their tables.

As such, the average of local internet users installing adblock programs stands at 11.86%, the study found.

“As in other European countries, 1 in 3 Romanian users have an adblocker installed on their desktop browser. A visit to some of the most popular websites in Romania can show us why: poor user experience, created by a phenomenon which we can only call as “advertising feeding” in irritating formats, a common practice,” said Aidan Joyce, CEO Oriel.

The percentage puts Romania bellow more developed markets. By comparison, in the US the percentage of users of adblock programs for the desktop browser in similar to the one in Romania, while for mobile devices it reached 11%.

One in 4 internet users in Romania who installed an ad block program did so in order for the web pages to load faster and so they would have a better internet surfing experience, the study found. At the same time, 23% of users of adblock programs would uninstall them if advertising would not affect the websites' loading speed.

The online activities most affected by aggressive advertising was, as last year, the reading of news and watching films online. The content categories most affected by the use of adblock programs for the desktop were: satire and humor, masculine lifestyle, auto & moto, IT&C, video, and online TV.

According to the study, the standard user of ad block programs in Romania is a man (67.7%), aged between 18 and 44 (65.9%), employed or self-employed, and holds a graduate or post-graduate degree (61.1%).

The full study can be read, in Romanian, here.

editor@romania-insider.com