GLOBAL: Global advertising expenditure is expected to grow by 3.9% to $613.5bn in 2018 and advertisers in Asia-Pacific will account for 41% of the increase, according to a new study from Dentsu Aegis Network.

The Japanese-owned marketing communications firm had predicted global adspend growth of 3.6% in a previous report, published in January, but revised the figure up because of the positive impact expected from the FIFA World Cup in Russia, the recent Winter Olympics and Paralympics in South Korea and other events.

Asia-Pacific is expected to deliver 4.5% adspend growth this year, up from 4.2% in the January forecast, with India and China recording particularly strong growth rates of 10.5% and 6.5% respectively.

Growth in China will be driven by digital, which is forecast to take 60% of all advertising spend and increase by 14.8%, with the online giants Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent projected to drive around 80% of this digital growth. Some RMB630bn is expected to be spent on advertising in China this year, or 16.2% of global adspend.

Meanwhile, North America is forecast to account for a third (32%) of the global increase this year, followed by Western Europe (13%), Latin America (8%) and Eastern Europe (5%).

Adspend in the US is forecast to show continued growth in 2018, increasing by 3.4% to reach $217.3bn, while the UK advertising market is expected to grow by 4.2% to reach £20.4bn – an upward revision on the 3.8% forecast in January which comes despite concerns about the country’s growth prospects post-Brexit.

In terms of global adspend by media, Dentsu forecasts year-on-year growth in TV (1.2%), radio (2.0%), cinema (5.9%), and out of home (2.2%), but declines for newspapers (-7.5%) and magazines (-6.5%).

But digital adspend is expected to rise by 12.6% to $231bn, or more than three times the rate of all media (3.9%), and is forecast to overtake TV in 2019.

In addition, a quarter (25.2%) of global adspend is expected to be delivered via mobile devices for the first time.

“Digital remains the dominant growth area with 25% of global advertising spend expected to be delivered through mobile for the first time,” said Jerry Buhlmann, CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network. “Digital is now the leading form of advertising in 21 out of the 59 markets we track.”

Sourced from Dentsu Aegis Network; additional content by WARC staff