India's ad growth to remain steady in 2016, says media agency

Publicis Groupe agency ZenithOptimedia has said India will hold on to its advertising growth rate in 2016. This comes even as other emerging markets, notably China, Russia and Brazil, are slowing, the media agency said in its latest adex forecast.

India's advertising growth rate for 2015 has been 13 per cent and the estimated Rs 45,000-crore domestic ad market will grow at this rate in the next year as well, it says. The agency adds double-digit ad growth will continue till 2018, with the total ad market expanding by $3 billion (nearly Rs 20,000 crore) between 2015 and 2018. "Television will largely fuel India's ad growth next year at 15 per cent," says Anupriya Acharya, group chief executive of ZenithOptimedia India. "Print advertising will grow at 10 per cent. Digital advertising is expected to grow upwards of 20 per cent, while all other media are expected to grow at five per cent to 10 per cent in 2016," she adds.

Earlier, ZenithOptimedia had said India's ad growth rate for 2015 would be 12 per cent. But a percentage point increase now clearly points to where the domestic ad market has moved in recent months.

According to data from TAM Adex sourced from the industry, the e-commerce and start-up boom has seen 2,000 new advertisers enter the market this year. While the e-commerce bubble has shown some signs of strain recently, estimates are that ad by e-commerce companies will not be significantly impacted due to this in the coming quarters.

"E-commerce, telecom, mobile phones are expected to have the maximum growth next year, followed by automobiles and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods)," Acharya says. This is similar to the trend seen this year, experts say.

E-commerce, followed by aggressive ads by telcos to promote 3G and 4G plans and new launches by handset firms drove growth this year. Traditional categories such as auto, FMGC as well as electronics also contributed. ZenithOptimedia is not the only agency to have projected a buoyant rate of growth this year and next year.

Earlier, Madison Media had revised its ad growth rate for 2015 to 13.8 per cent from 10 per cent on the back of a surge seen in TV advertising. It had said TV ad grew 20.6 per cent in the first half of 2015, which would extend into the second half as well.

TV would close the year with a growth rate of 21 per cent, second only to digital, Madison Media said. In terms of overall size, TV advertising, according to sectoral estimates, is pegged at Rs 17,000-18,000 crore. Print advertising as a market is around Rs 16,000 crore in size, while digital as an ad market is around Rs 5,000 crore in size.