Densu and the exchange4media Group together released the 7th edition of the Digital Advertising Report 2023 today in Mumbai.

The research identifies key trends for 2022–2023, provides current data on the whole digital industry, and discusses spending and industry insights in all areas. 

Abheek Biswas, AVP Consumer Insights, Dentsu Creative India, Dr. Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld and Founder, exchange4media, and top leadership from dentsu presented it. To name a few, Divya Karani, Media Chief Executive Officer, Dentsu South Asia; Vinod Thadani, Chief Digital Growth Officer, Dentsu Media & CEO iProspect.

The analysis projects that by the end of 2023, India's advertising market would have grown by 14.7 per cent and will be worth Rs. 98,363 crore. 

Major events like the IPL 2023, Cricket World Cup 2023, Women's World Cup 2023, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, and Assembly elections can be credited for the surge.

Speaking of the developing digital landscape, the report claimed that over the coming years, the Indian advertising market will grow at the quickest rate in the globe due to the evolution and growth of the digital economy. India's advertising market expanded by 18.1 per cent in 2022 compared to the previous year. The sector had a market worth Rs. 85,769 crore at the end of 2022, up 18.1 per cent from 2021.

The Indian advertising market is expected to grow at a compounded rate of 15.07 per cent to reach Rs. 1,13,575 crore by the end of 2024, according to the dentsu-e4m Digital Advertising Report 2023. Meanwhile, the digital advertising market was valued at Rs. 29,784 crore in 2021 and is expected to reach Rs. 51,110 crore with a compounded growth rate of 31 per cent by 2024.

One year after overcoming the pandemic, the market is presently seeing a stabilisation of the advertising space with a faster average growth rate and more chances than before the pandemic. 

The highest growth in advertising spending over the previous year was seen in industries including ecommerce, retail, consumer durables, pharmaceuticals and BFSI.

According to the estimate, by the end of 2022, television would account for 40 per cent, i.e., Rs. 33,954 crore of India's advertising market, with digital media contributing 35 per cent, which means Rs. 29,784 crore. However,  21 per cent (Rs. 18, 258 crore) of the Indian advertising market came from print media.

“Advertising spending on digital media has seen a growth of 39.5 per cent over 2021 and is expected to reach a spending share of 40 per cent in 2023, overriding television media and becoming the biggest media in terms of advertising share in India. This growth can be attributed to the constant improvements in the digital infrastructure which has been responsible for bringing this technology to the masses. This can be further witnessed in the usage of large screens viz. connected televisions and other unified interfaces where around a third of the content consumed is social media, OTT or gaming. The spending share of digital media is further expected to reach 45 per cent by the end of 2024,” the report adds.

Comparing the growth of digital media and TV, the report stated that digital media is anticipated to continue rising and surpass television as the largest media by the end of 2023 with a market value of Rs 39,315 crore, growing at a pace of 32 per cent.  

“With digital media contributing the largest share of media spends, the share of television is expected to come down from the current 40 to 37 per cent in 2023 and further to 34 per cent by 2024. Also, the spending share of print media may drop from the current 21 to 19 per cent by the end of 2023," says the report.

According to the report, the increase in OTT and online video consumption is a result of increased smart device adoption and internet connectivity, and the use of digital transactions and ecommerce is also fueling the increase in advertising expenditures on digital media. The dentsu-e4m analysis highlighted that, in addition to these important causes, the expansion of advertising opportunities on ecommerce and D2C platforms is driving digital media to new heights and hastening the mass market's adoption of digital technologies.

The dentsu-e4m Digital Advertising Report 2023 is an effort to document the media expenditures and trends of the Indian advertising sector as a whole, with a concentration on the digital advertising sector.