MUMBAI: Zenith has predicted that the global ad expenditure will grow 4.5 per cent in 2018, reaching $581 billion by the end of the year. For the coming years, the agency expects the advertising expenditure to grow behind the global economy and its forecast has mentioned 4 per cent growth for 2019, followed by 4.2 per cent in 2020 and 4.1 per cent in 2021.

The forecast for 2019 is slightly down from its September prediction of 4.2 per cent growth.

The report has indicated that regions in ‘Fast-track Asia’ (India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam) are expecting the growth to rise to an average of 6.2 per cent a year to 2021.

India has been ranked third (followed by USA and China) in the list of top ten contributors to ad-spend growth 2018-2021 and is expected to see $4,506 million in ad-spends, which is 6 per cent of the expected total global advertising expenditure

North American ad-spend will grow 3 per cent in 2019 and will show an average 3.4 per cent growth each year to 2021 as the “ad market has been growing fairly steadily but unspectacularly since 2010”. Latin America is expected to record an average growth rate of 4.1 per cent a year to 2021. Combining “large scale and rapid growth” China will contribute 19 per cent to the global growth rate and will spend $14,461 million for advertisements.

The forecast has further revealed that six of the ten largest contributors will be rising markets (China, India, Indonesia, Brazil,  South Korea and Russia), and they will contribute 37 per cent of new ad-spend over the next three years.