Carat, the leading global media network, today publishes its first forecast for worldwide advertising expenditure in 2016, combined with its latest forecasts for 2015 and actual figures for 2014, with all markets ring-fencing Digital media spending, even when faced with negative economic headwinds.
Based on data received from 59 markets across the Americas, Asia Pacific and EMEA, Carat’s latest global advertising expenditure forecasts show Digital media, with a predicted US$17.1 billion or +15.7% increase in spend in 2015, is outpacing previous Carat predictions from September 2014. Powered by a dramatic rise in Mobile ad spending globally of +50% and Online video of +21.1% predicted in 2015, Carat forecasts that Digital will, for the first time, account for more than a quarter of all advertising spend in 2016 with a market share of 25.9%.
From a global perspective, Carat forecasts that in 2015 advertising spend across all media will increase by US$23.8 billion to reach US$540 billion, accounting for a +4.6% year-on-year increase. Market optimism continues into 2016 with Carat’s first forecast for the year predicting a year-on-year global advertising growth of +5.0%.
In 2014 all regions reported positive growth, from Western Europe at +2.3%, +4.5% in North America, +5.3% for Asia Pacific and high performing Latin America at +11.4%. Regional confidence is predicted to continue in 2015 with all key markets forecasting positive growth next year except Russia, due to a struggling advertising market and predicted recession. Western Europe is strengthened by a second consecutive year of positive growth driven by strong numbers in the UK and Spain; as well Greece, Ireland, and Portugal returning to positive growth after six consecutive years of ad spend declines. North America continues to grow at a solid pace of +4.5% in 2015 and +4.6% in 2016, with programmatic spending in the US predicted to grow by +137%, reaching spend levels of US$10billion.
By media, whilst Digital is the star performer in terms of growth, achieving higher that predicted levels in 2014 of +17.4% and accounting for 21.7% of market share, TV will continue to command the majority of market share for the foreseeable future, reaching 42.7% in 2014, and is predicted to grow by more than +3% year-on-year in 2015 and 2016. The steady decline in Print is expected to continue, however Out-of-Home is now positioned as the second fastest growth media, behind Digital, with a global market share of spend of 7.1%. For the first time, Out-of-Home is predicted to outpace Magazines global share of advertising spend, with Magazines forecast to achieve 6.9% market share in 2015, and with continuing declines for this media, it is predicted to fall behind Radio for the first time in 2016.