1.43 lakh brands invested in print advertising in Jan-Sept ’24 – TAM

India’s print advertising continues to exhibit its resilience. According to the latest TAM Media Research report, the sector exhibited a 3% increase in ad space volumes during the January-September 2024 period over January-September 2023. The report shows that the education sector emerged as the top advertiser, capturing 17% of ad space during this period.

The top six sectors maintained their rankings from January-September 2023 to January-September 2024. Following the education sector (17% share: #1 rank), services (15%: #2), auto (14%: #3), BFSI (11%: #4), retail (8%: #5), and personal accessories (6%: #6) maintained their top spots. Telecom products showed major growth, leaping seven spots to secure 10th place.

During January-September 2024, 275+ categories out of 675+ registered positive growth. The cars category maintained its first position with a 7% share of ad space. Two wheelers category posted the highest growth, 49%, climbing from seventh place in 2023 to third place with a 5% share in 2024. The top 10 categories combined accounted for 44% of the total ad space during January-September 2024. The next 40 categories collectively represented 27% of the ad space.

The report shows that the top 10 advertisers during the surveyed period accounted for 14% share of ad space. Maruti Suzuki India and SBS Biotech emerged as the top two advertisers, maintaining their leadership positions across both, January-September 2024 and January-September 2023. Interestingly, four advertisers from the auto sector featured prominently among the top 10 in both periods, highlighting the sector's continued dominance in print advertising.

While the print medium attracted 1.17 lakh advertisers during January-September 2024, this was marginally lower than the same period in 2023, which saw 1.20 lakh advertisers for the print medium. The automobile sector dominated the leading advertisers with top four of the top 10 belonging to this sector during January-September 2024. The top 5 leading advertisers during this period included Maruti Suzuki India, SBS Biotech, and Hero Motocorp, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, and Reliance Retail.

A similar, marginal decline was seen in total number of brands advertising in print medium during this period, which stood at 1.43 lakhs in the first nine months of 2024 compared to 1.47 lakhs during the corresponding period in the previous year. Honda Shine 100 led the brands list, followed by Honda Activa H Smart, Maruti Car Range, Allen Career Institute, and Aakash Medical/IIT-JEE/Foundation.

Corporate financial institutes saw 163% growth among the fastest growing categories, cellular phones-smart phones witnessed 143% growth, and the ‘e-commerce – education’ category grew by 112%. The next three fastest-growing categories included e-commerce – online shopping (86%), mutual funds (50%), two-wheelers (49%).

The advertising landscape showed distinct patterns in promotional strategies, with ‘brand promotion’ dominating with a 68% share of ad space, followed by sales promotions at 29% and others at 3%. Within sales promotions, discount promotions secured the first position with a 43% share of ad space, followed by multiple promotions controlling a 42% share during January-September 2024.