LONDON: The FMCG sector accounts for more than one fifth of global advertising expenditure and its share is growing, according to Nielsen's quarterly Global AdView Pulse report.

The information and measurement company's study, which measures ad spending for TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, outdoor, cinema and internet display advertising, said that FMCG advertising took a 21.3% share of total adspend in the first half of 2013, helped by a 5.7% year-on-year increase in spending.

The next biggest sector was entertainment, with a 13.0% share, although ad budgets had dipped 1.2%. Nielsen noted that FMCG's lead had grown since the first quarter when their respective shares were 20.1% and 13.3%.

These were followed by industry & services, with a share of 11.3% of total adspend, and this sector, which includes the business services, property, institutions, and power and water categories, also saw the greatest growth in adspend over the half, registering a 7.2% year-on-year increase.

The fourth sector was automotive which accounted for 9.2% of total expenditure. Spending here contracted by 3.1% as slow economic growth continued to adversely impact on the sector.

The remaining seven sectors and the shares of total adspend were media (8.9%), healthcare (7.5%), financial (6.3%), durables (5.9%), telecoms (5.9%), distribution (5.4%) and clothing & accessories (3.4%).

Ad budgets in financial services and clothing & accessories declined by 1.2% and 0.32% respectively in the first half, while spending on durables, up 5.2%, and healthcare, up 2.5%, began to recover.

"We see spending across media types that own more market share becoming more conservative than previous quarters and ad spend budgets on emerging ad platforms increasing their budgets more and more," said Randall Beard, global head, Advertiser Solutions for Nielsen.

"The balance between advertisers within some sectors, media types and regions cutting back, while other's budgets increase produced a relatively flat growth pattern of 2.8% globally," he added.

Data sourced from Nielsen; additional content by Warc staff