India to become seventh-largest ad market globally by 2025: GroupM’s TYNY Forecast

Currently the world’s tenth largest market, it is estimated to grow at 22.1%.

India is set to become the seventh-largest ad market in the world by 2025, predicts GroupM’s This Year, Next Year Global 2022 Mid-Year Ad Forecast. Currently the world’s tenth largest market, it is expected to overtake Canada, Australia and Brazil.

The expectations for India’s growth forecast in 2022 are relatively unchanged since December. It is expected to grow at 22.1% “as underlying growth there remains strong”.

“There is also significant potential for long-term expansion still in place in India, where the population is broadly similar in size compared to China, but India’s advertising market is less than one-tenth as big,” states the report.

While the rising inflation in the country is a concern for the ad growth, the report dismisses it as India is used to seeing high inflation.

“Relatively higher levels of inflation have been much more common in the past, so consumers and businesses are somewhat more experienced at managing it,” it states.

The report expects global ad spends to grow by 8.4%, excluding the impact of the US political advertising, which is expected to reach $13 billion this year. This is lower than the 9.7% it had forecasted in December 2021. The change is driven primarily by deceleration in China, which represented 20% of global advertising last year. It is now expected to grow by only 3.3% versus 10.2% predicted in December last year.

The United States still remains the largest market globally, representing 39% of the world market. Growth, excluding political advertising, is forecast at 10% versus 10.8% in December. Canada is expected to grow at 9.5% growth expectation this year.

Europe and Central Asia, which represent 20% of global advertising, are collectively set to grow by 8.5% this year, up from 7.8% previously.

The report also predicts the growth for the different mediums. It has brought down the growth estimate for digital advertising to 11.5% from its previous 13.5% forecast. Within digital advertising, retail or e-commerce-based media growth is expected to outpace all other major forms of digital media in years ahead.

After double-digit growth in 2021, television is expected to witness a 4.4% gain this year. The global Connected TV+ advertising is estimated to amount to $21 billion in 2022, up by 24% over 2021 and accounting for 12% of all TV globally.

OOH is expected to grow at 14.3% (excluding China) this year. “We expect outdoor to exceed its 2019 volumes in 2024, indicating that much of the growth we are seeing at present can still be characterized as recovery driven,” the report states.