Advertising spends in India are expected to grow around 10% year on year to Rs 61,204 crores, according to media buying agency GroupM. This is effectively a slowdown in growth from the 15.5% which it had predicted last year, and later ended up being a growth of 11.9%. In 2017, there is a noticeable expected increase in the share of digital advertising, which is expected to account for 15.5% of total ad spends in 2017, at around Rs 9490 crores, as compared with Rs 7300 crores last year. Digital is the third highest category of advertising spends, albeit lagging far behind TV (Rs 27,378 crore, 44.7% of total) and Print (Rs 18258 crores, 29.8% of total). Note that this year, GroupM hasn't carved out Magazines as a separate category: last year it had predicted that Magazine advertising would decline for the third consecutive year, down by 14.8%, to around 1% of total advertising spends; it's not unimaginable to believe that Magazines would have dropped below 1% this year. In a statement, GroupM CEO C. Srinivas said that 2016 was volatile, but this year, "The first quarter will give a slow start to the year, with the market picking up from March-April, fueled by a stable recovery process post demonetization. Sectors that are contributing to this positive trajectory include Auto, Media and e-Wallets. In addition Government and Political parties will increase spending with elections in several states this year." Segmentwise charts 1. Digital - Digital advertising is expected to continue growing the…
