Mobile ad spend will grow by 62% to $1.7 Bn in 2021

Mobile ad spend in India may show a growth of 84 per cent this year to $0.46 billion (Rs 2,992 crore), up from $0.25 billion in 2016. This new growth number will push upward overall digital ad spend in 2017 to $1.21 billion (Rs 7,870 crore), according to market research firm eMarketer.

By 2021, the digital ad spend will further grow and mobile ad spend will take a lion’s share of whopping $1.73 billion, almost 62 per cent of India’s total digital ad spend of $2.8 billion.

The growth in mobile ad spend is being driven by a boom in smartphone ownership. In 2017, smartphones will make up 36.6 per cent of all mobile phone users, which is expected to grow to 47.4 per cent in 2021, according to the report.

Besides, mobile social networking is also gaining popularity in the country. This year, it is expected to reach more than a quarter of all mobile phone users, and three-quarters of all social networking users.

“Driven by increasing smartphones Internet penetration, falling data prices and the availability of low-cost handsets, mobile will be a major contributor to the growth of digital advertising in the years to come,” said Shelleen Shum, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer.

Traditional media still rules

Despite the strong growth of digital media in India, the traditional mediums like print and television still hold sway over ad budgets in India. Last year, print advertising generated $3 billion in ad revenues in 2016, while TV was responsible for $3 billion.

KPMG/FICCI reported that newspaper growth was really coming from papers published in Hindi and in other local languages and dialects—generally referred to collectively as “vernacular” papers.

However, the study by two firms found that the continued adoption of internet-enabled devices (mostly smartphones), as well as the the falling price of 4G data in an increasingly competitive mobile service market, has opened a new market in digital media as well as in digital ads.