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Most followed: Arris Group, Facebook, Matomy Media, Pace, William Hill

Published: 11:33 23 Apr 2015 BST

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Advertising on mobile devices is a bit of a theme this morning.

Yesterday it was revealed that mobile advertising revenues in the USA soared 76% to US$12.5bn last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Internet Advertising Revenue Report.

Mobile ads now account for a quarter of all digital ad revenues across the pond which some might think is a surprisingly low proportion.

Meanwhile, social media giant and the world’s greatest thief of time, Facebook, reported after trading ended yesterday in New York that the number of users accessing the site via mobile devices rose 24% to 1.25bn.

"For Facebook, growing mobile users is the only figure that really matters in its results at this point," said Mike Weston, chief executive of data science consultancy Profusion, according to the Independent.

Facebook took an unfeasibly long time to crack mobile advertising, but the juggernaut is definitely rolling downhill now and picking up speed, even if other parts of the business are slowing down.

Post-tax profits of US$509mln in the first quarter were down from US$639mln a year earlier and below expectations, while revenue grew at the slowest rate in two years, to US$3.5bn.

Things are not so sweet in the mobile ad world for Israeli digital advertising firm Matomy Media (LON:MTMY), which issued a profit warning this morning.

The agency, a certified Google partner, warned that it has been affected by a slowdown in trading activity on a number of media trading platforms and exchanges, after several introduced stricter internal regulations in an attempt to screen out fraudulent and low conversion web sites.

Elsewhere, the amusingly named Arris Group – it is safe to assume they do not have an office in trendy East London – is to buy TV set-top box maker Pace (LON:PIC) in a £1.4bn deal.

I am obliged to the Bradford Telegraph and Argus newspaper for the information that Pace is based in the model village of Saltaire in the city of Bradford.

Whether the Pace HQ will remain there post-merger or whether there will be any redundancies is not mentioned in the local paper’s report, largely because Arris is keeping such plans close to its chest.

Pace’s chairman, City veteran Allan Leighton, did say that Pace believes the merger to be “a great fit for both companies, our employees, customers and trading partners”.

It used to be said that you do not see many hard-up bookies, and that is probably still true, but spare a thought for William Hill (LON:WMH), which had its worst week ever in week three of this year on its sports book.

Normal service was resumed in the second and third months of the year, with the bookie’s hand repeatedly dipping into punters’ pockets.

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