India to be among fastest-growing ad markets in 2024: Magna forecast

India's advertising market will be among the world's most buoyant this year, according to IPG Mediabrands' investment and intelligence unit, Magna. 

The newly-published Global Ad Forecast predicts that global media owners’ advertising revenues will grow 10% to reach $927 billion this year following a stronger-than-expected first quarter worldwide and an improvement to economic outlooks, especially in Asia Pacific.

Ad revenues in India, Sri Lanka, Japan and the UK are all expected to grow at roughly 12% in 2024, a pace surpassed only by Spain at 14%, according to the forecast.

India’s advertising market grew by 11.2% in 2023, up to Rs 1.1 trillion but will grow another 11.8% in 2024 to move the market up to Rs 1.2 trillion, says Magna.

India's fast-growing economy is partly the catalyst, with GDP projected to remain strong at +6.8% in 2024 (versus +7.8% 2023) and +6.5% in 2025. 

The Government of India’s push to improve digital infrastructure is another factor fueling digital ad growth with digital media growing 14.5% in 2023 and is now forecasted to jump another 16.1% this year, says Magna. Such an ongoing surge has meant that the digital share of India's total ad revenues will reach 45% by the end of 2024, a huge jump from the 25% it garnered in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

Overall, ad revenue in India is now up 50% since that time, fueled by digital, even as print, radio and cinema still lagging behind 2019 levels.

Linear growth in 2024, will be at +8.6%, says the forecast. In a normal year, H1 contribution is generally less than H2, but the general elections that took place from March to May followed by ICC T20 Cricket World Cup in June-July will boost H1 growth (+11.8%) equal to second half of the year (+11.9%). 

CPG, auto, retail, government and political advertising, and finance are expected to be the most dominant sectors contributing to India’s advertising growth in 2024, followed by pharma, education, real estate, media and entertainment and building materials.

Magna's ad growth forecast for 2024 in India by media type (%)

Digital +16
Social +22
Search +13
Television +9
Print +6
Radio +9
OOH +16