The advertising market is likely to grow at 15.5 per cent to Rs 57,486 crore this year, making it the best market globally, driven by FMCG and e-commerce players as also the upcoming T20 Cricket World Cup, according to global media agency GroupM.
In 2015, advertising expenditure grew 14.2 per cent to Rs 49,758 crore against the agency's estimate of a lower 12.7 per cent growth.
However, the agency predicts a decline for the television medium with a projected growth of 17.6 per cent this year, down from 18.6 per cent last year.
"India is the fastest growing ad market among all the major ones. Last year was the best year for ad spend growth in the past five years. While global headwinds are building up this year, there are a number of positives that will help the Indian ad sector grow at higher levels in 2016," GroupM South Asia chief executive CVL Srinivas told reporters here.
"Categories like e-commerce and FMCG are a very large component of the AdEx, which will continue to invest behind brand-building and market expansion. The Cricket T20 World Cup will also lead to a spurt in advertising, apart from elections in five large states," he added.
Mobile handsets makers/marketers, telcom service providers led by Reliance Jio and others for 4G services will also push ad spends. Another enabler will be the financial services sector with newer banks and payment wallets taking off, he said.
"Despite the many global headwinds, we are optimistic at this stage as we believe that India is at a very unique position compared to most other large markets, with so much for headroom for growth," he said.
On the sectoral drives of the media space, he said while digital will remain the fastest growing platform, traditional media platforms will also show positive growth.
Digital has grown 45.5 per cent in 2015 and the media agency estimates the digital to grow by a notch better this year at 47.5 per cent to Rs 7,300 crore from Rs 4,950 crore, increasing its share in the total ad pie to 12.7 per cent.
"With significant number of users accessing the internet primarily from their mobiles, ad spend on mobile will become as large as the digital from two years ago. With digital media achieving audience reach numbers that are next only to television, multi-screen planning is the order of the day," its chief growth officer Lakshmi Narashimhan said.
The FMCG segment, which is considered as the mainstay
for the ad industry, is expected to be 28 per cent of the AdEx in 2016, despite facing volume pressure, but boosted by falling input costs, the agency GroupM said.
E-commerce ad spends are expected to 8.1 per cent in 2016 on the back of increasing competition, market expansion and newer players entering the space. E-commerce as a platform for advertising will see further traction in 2016, he said.
GroupM sees some consolidation in the e-commerce spends in print media.
"At a very macro level, the kind of spends e-commerce as a category did in the print, at some level would go for a correction though it is not going to be shifting completely out, Srinivas said.
Srinivas further said with media convergence happening, there will be a need to classify what is TV, print and digital going forward.
For newspapers, 2016 will be better with a growth forecast of 6 per cent compared to 5.2 per cent last year. The increase in ad spends expected from print heavy sectors like auto, BFSIs and the government sector augurs well for newspapers. Regional advertising of telcos and FMCG brands will benefit language dailies.
"While print as a medium is facing a lot of pressure from digital there is still headroom for growth in certain pockets and amongst certain audience clusters," he said, adding but the decline in periodicals and magazines will gather more speed this year.
Magazines declined 13.4 per cent in 2015 and is expected to fall by 14.8 per cent this year.
Radio is expected to grow at a little over 10 per cent and there is scope to pick up towards the year end as most new stations will be fully operational.
Cinema advertising is estimated to grow 25 per cent in 2016.
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Reacting to the ASCI's order, consumer electronics maker LG said its claim is based on facts and data.
"LG's range of refrigerators have been developed, especially for the Indian market. Our technology ensures energy savings. The same is communicated in our TV commercial. It is based on facts and data," said an LG spokesperson.
