Overall ad spends in India may grow by 10.5%: Zenith

NEW DELHI: Here's some reason for the Indian advertising fraternity to cheer. The Rs 24,000-crore Indian advertising industry is headed for brighter times and in fact, will be leading the pack of markets that power global growth in the sector.

Zenith Optimedia, the world’s third largest media-buying agency and an enterprise under the Paris-based Publicis Group reckons in its annual forecastthat overall ad spends in India will grow by 10.5% (at current prices). This is an improvement over the 4.5% growth that the industry recorded this year over 2008.

In its 2010 Indian advertising forecast shared exclusively with ET, the agency predicts that advertising in newspapers, magazine and TV will grow at 10%, 11%, 11.6% respectively. On the other hand, radio (14.1%), cinema (5%), outdoor (2%) and internet (16%) will all continue to grow next year and even in 2011 and 2012, the study says.

The agency also forecasts that Indian advertising will grow at 11.4% and 11.8% for the years 2011 and 2012 respectively. “The worst is clearly over for the advertising industry globally and India is bound to show up better numbers than some other markets that bore the brunt of the recession to a greater extent. But it is true that India is a clear growth market of the future,” said Satyajit Sen, CEO Zenith Optimedia India.