[Monitor] Average of 160,000 won spent to watch mobile ads

A consumer spends an average of over 160,000 won ($142) per year while watching advertisements on their mobile devices, showed a report released by a civic consumer group Friday.

Last year, this was made up of 66,613 won spent on data to watch the ads, while the opportunity cost per time spent watching the ads came to 94,389 won, the Green Consumer Network said.

The data expenses were gathered based on a report by digital ad agency DMC Media, which had shown that an online user watched an average of four 15-second ads per day. The consumer group said it had multiplied 6.25 won with every 1 MB used, based on a 50,000 won data plan offered by KT.

As for the opportunity cost, the group said it multiplied the annual mobile ad watching time with the average wage of a worker at 4,31 won per second as of 2015.

The group pointed out that a 15-second ad is usually designed so that a consumer cannot skip or end the ad, meaning a user was actually spending 13,000 won for the ads per month. It said the exact amount of data used to watch the ads should be clarified to consumers with due compensation.

Online companies, on the other hand, contend that most of the revenue from video ads are taken by content producers. (khnews@heraldcorp.com)