India’s ad market to grow by 16% in 2022: Dentsu International report

Advertising in India is set to grow at 16 percent in 2022, led by key sporting events and elections, said a report by Dentsu International. At 16 percent growth, India will stay ahead of the US - projected to grow at 12.8 percent, according to the report - and Brazil (9 percent) as the fastest growing market.

According to the most recent Dentsu Global Ad Spend Forecasts, India is predicted to have an increase in advertising spending of 15.2 percent in 2023 and 15.7 percent in 2024.

Globally, advertising spending would increase by 8.7 percent in 2022. Ad spending in Asia-Pacific is anticipated to reach $250 billion, with digital accounting for much of this amount. Forecast indicates that the Asia-Pacific advertising market will increase by 3.9 percent to reach $259.7 billion in 2023 and a further 4.7 percent in 2024. Looking ahead, Dentsu expects the 2023 global advertising market to increase by 5.4 percent to reach $778.6 billion followed by a further 5.1 percent increase in 2024.

The overall ad spend growth in Asia-Pacific is boosted by key sporting events such as Indian Premier League, FIFA World Cup, Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, and country elections in Australia and India.

Prerna Mehrotra, CEO Media APAC, Dentsu international, said that this year, India (+16 percent), Malaysia (+11 percent) and Hong Kong (+10 percent) have all achieved double-digit growth.

“Digital continues to drive growth accounting for 60.7 percent of all spending in Asia-Pacific with social, video and search predicted to lead digital growth. Advertisers increase focus and resources into e-commerce, display, and search budgets to respond to the new consumption habits. Use of first party data to identify the most profitable customers, combined with third-party data to target the prospects in the most efficient channels will help drive efficiency and manage costs,” she notes.

Meanwhile, the report stated that forecasted spending on advertising in China is expected to rise by 4 percent in 2023 and 5.4 percent the following year.

The reforecast of media investment is released in the context of escalating media price inflation, geopolitical tension, upcoming key elections, and one of the most anticipated global sports events of the year, the FIFA World Cup. Due to continued uncertainty, the current and historical comparison data has also been adjusted to remove Russian investment from the forecast, to better reflect the rest of the international ad spend trends and predictions.

The report said that digital continues to be the powerhouse driving APAC ad spend, as the fastest growing medium at 11.5 percent to reach $151.7 billion, a 60.7 percent share of total ad spend. Fuelling this is the double-digit growth of Programmatic (32.3 percent), Paid Social (27.4 percent), and digital display (13.3 percent) in 2022. In SEA, TV spend is still significant, with the largest share (57.2 percent) of total SEA spend (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam), and a growth rate of 4.6 percent.

Globally, Out-of-Home (OOH) and cinema will both see encouraging double-digit growth in 2022 (respectively 11.5 percent and 19.6 percent). Radio is also forecast to grow, much faster than initially considered with a new reforecast of 5 percent for the year, up from 2 percent in the January predictions – which is mainly due to faster return to office working. As with previous predictions, ad spend in newspapers and magazines will continue to decline.

In 2022, the Americas will be the top ad spend region at $329.6 billion and the most dynamic with spend increasing by 13.1 percent. India at 16 percent growth will stay ahead of the US at 12.8 percent and Brazil at 9 percent as the fastest growing market.

Industry wise globally, the greatest growth is forecast for the technology sector (+11.3 percent), which has benefited from people’s greater reliance on digital devices. Retail is one of the key sectors of spend growth at a rate of 11 percent in 2022. The sector is driven by a number of factors including the significant growth of e-commerce, the entry of new players, and the introduction of emerging retail platforms. In Asia-Pacific, technology, automotive and cosmetics and personal care are among the fastest growing sectors.

Peter Huijboom, global CEO, Media and global clients, Dentsu international said that even with everything which has happened in recent months, not least the protracted war in Ukraine and its international repercussions, the advertising recovery remains strong on a global scale.

“And, despite factors such as inflation putting pressure on household budgets, combined with 2021 being a tough comparative year, we have only marginally revised down our 2022 global growth forecast by just 0.4 percentage points. Despite global economic uncertainty, brands are continuing to prioritise their spend in channels which will give them both the digital-flexibility and return they seek,” he adds.