Asia-Pacific to lead 2012 global adspend growth at 8.2%

Insight firm Strategy Analytics expects the world’s ad expenditures to grow 4.9 per cent to US$465.5 billion based on last year’s 3.8 per cent growth, with growth in Asia-Pacific far outpacing other regions, according to the research firm’s Global Advertising Forecast.

The forecast for Asia-Pacific is slightly more optimistic than Zenith Optimedia’s which predicted that the region will grow by 7.2 per cent this year. Strategy Analytics’ global forecast, on the other hand, tracks fairly closely with Zenith’s in expecting global growth of 4.7 per cent.

The discrepancy is primarily due to Strategy Analytics upbeat expectations for Japan’s 2012 adex with a forecast of 5.2 per cent. In contrast, WARC expects less than half that growth, with a prediction of 2.5 per cent, and Zenith predicts that the nation’s adex will grow 3.1 per cent.

“The increase will mostly be driven by Japan’s recovery from the 2010 earthquake as well as double-digit growth in online advertising,” said the Strategy Analytics report.

Last year, Japan’s adex shrunk 2.3 per cent to US$70 billion, according to Dentsu.

China is another controversial market for analysts. While all predict double-digit growth, Strategy Analytics anticipates growth of 15.3 per cent this year, Zenith 16.4 per cent and WARC 11.2 per cent.

 “China’s growth will be primarily driven by strong growth in online advertising, which is expected to see a 36.5 per cent increase from 2011. As Chinese online and social-networking audiences scale up, we forecast an average annual double-digit growth rate of 18.2 per cent in online ad spend over the next five years,” added Strategy Analytics.

Elsewhere, Strategy Analytics expects US ad spend to increase 2.7 per cent to US$152.1 billion while Europe is expected to grow by 3.7 per cent to US$136.3 billion this year.

Ed Barton, Strategy Analytics’ director of digital media strategies, explained, “Major global-impact events led by the Olympics, the US presidential elections and the European football championships combine to paint a brighter picture globally in 2012 for advertising spending overall. Furthermore, we expect that total ad spend will surpass half a trillion (US$500 billion) dollars in 2014.”

Looking at spend by media type, Strategy Analytics expects TV advertising to grow by 5 per cent this year to US$188.5 billion, taking 40 per cent of the world’s adspend pie. Global print advertising, however, is expected to grow only by half a per cent and account for a 26.4 per cent share. Other traditional formats, including cinema and radio are expected to grow around 4 per cent.

In contrast to these incremental growth forecasts, global online advertising is expected to grow 12.8 per cent to US$83.2 billion in 2012 and account for 18 per cent of global ad spending.

“Online advertising will continue along its growth trajectory, fueled by strong growth in emerging markets and increased spending volumes on social networking and online video advertising,” Barton said.