Digital fuelling big APAC adspend hike: Magna

Asia-Pacific is set to see 7.1% growth in adspend in 2019, according to Magna’s latest report, up from the 6% predicted six months ago.

That growth is slower than the 7.7% predicted by the end of 2018, which the Magna and IPG Mediabrands forecast says is thanks to a very strong performance globally for adspend in the second half of the year.

A significant portion of the 2019 growth will comes from the continuing high growth in spending across the Indian subcontinent, with Sri Lanka (17%), India (15%) and Pakistan (14%) all seeing huge increases, according to Magna. At the same time, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand will show little to no growth; in fact Singapore was one of only three countries globally, out of 70 that Magna analysed, where adspend shrank in 2018.

China and Japan will continue to dominate overall APAC adspend, accounting for almost two-thirds of it themselves, although China’s growth is predicted to slow just a little from 12% in 2018 to 10% in 2019.

Digital ad formats are unsurprisingly continuing to drive APAC growth, and by 2019 are forecast to account for 46% of total ad sales or US$81 billion. Within this, mobile advertising is maintaining its meteoric growth, with a further 26% expected in 2019, but social advertising is predicted to be the fastest growing digital medium, increasing by 27% in 2019 to US$15 billion.

Television is expected to make marginal gains with 2% growth, but newspaper and magazine advertising continues its demise with an expected 7% decline.

Gurpreet Singh, Magna APAC managing director, said: “The battle for share of adspend continues between TV and digital across most of the APAC markets. There is a clear movement towards digital across the spectrum, including most of the TV dominant markets.”