Facebook is poised to become the largest display advertiser in the United States, displacing Yahoo, according to a report published by research firm eMarketer.

According to the report, the social network giant’s advertising revenue will grow by 80.9 percent this year to $2.19 billion. That will give Facebook a 17.7 percent share of the display ad market to and help it blow past yahoo, which will hold a 13.1 percent share.

But the near-doubling of display ad revenues is actually a slowdown in growth for Facebook, which posted 164 percent and 117 percent ad revenue growth in 2009 and 2010 respectively when its display revenues were at relatively low levels.

“Facebook’s supreme popularity—both in terms of numbers of people and amount of time they spend there—creates a plethora of display ad impressions, mainly for its unique form of banners,” said David Hallerman, eMarketer principal analyst.

Facebook, which is likely to hit capital market by the first quarter of 2012, could earn $2.19 billion in display-ad sales this year, up from $1.21 billion last year.

While Yahoo! will earn $1.62 billion compared to $1.43 billion last year and Google will account for $1.15 billion, up from $860 million last year.

Yahoo!'s share of US display advertising is expected to decline to 13.1 percent in 2011 from 14.4 percent last year and Google's share is expected grow by 9.3 percent in 2011 from 8.6 percent last year.

For 2012, eMarketer believes that Google display ad revenue will climb 58.3 percent, while Facebook is expected to grow at a more modest 31.3 percent.

Even so, Facebook will remain as the largest display advertiser in the United States to account for 19.4 percent of the display ad market in 2012. Yahoo will slide to a 12.5 percent share. However it will hold its second rank and Google will edge up to 12.3 percent share.

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