Zenith Upgrades Global Adspend Forecasts

Citing that confidence in the global ad market is “currently improving rapidly,” Zenith expects adspend to rise by 4.6 percent this year, with particular economic growth in China and Argentina.

In December, the firm had forecast that global adspend would rise by 4.1 percent in 2018, toward the bottom of the 4 percent to 5 percent annual growth range that the market has maintained since 2011. It has revised that figure upward, to 4.6 percent. “A 0.5 percentage point revision to our forecasts is unusual; the last time we revised them upwards by so much was back in March 2011,” Zenith said.

China, in particular, saw strong growth in early 2018. Zenith now expects adspend there to grow by 8 percent this year, up from the 6 percent forecast issued in December. China is the world’s second-biggest ad market, accounting for 15 percent of global adspend, “so an upgrade here has a big effect on the global total,” the firm said. “A notable development here is that television has fought back against strong competition from online video and is no longer losing adspend, which it did in 2014, 2015 and 2017. We expect 1 percent growth in television adspend in China this year, alongside 13-percent growth in online advertising.”

Additionally, Argentina has recovered from its 2016 recession quicker than expected. Zenith now forecasts that adspend will grow 1 percent in Argentina this year, up from the previous forecast of a 2-percent decline.

The revised global forecasts for 2019 and 2020 are also above the forecasts Zenith made three months ago: 4.4-percent growth is predicted for 2019 and 4.3-percent growth for 2020, both forecasts being up by 0.2 percentage points.

“The global ad market grew by 4 percent last year,” said Jonathan Barnard, Zenith’s head of forecasting and director of global intelligence. “After a jump in confidence, we now expect it to grow substantially faster this year, boosted by the Winter Olympics, football World Cup and U.S. mid-term elections.”