Adspend in the APAC region is expected to grow by 5.9% in 2021, with share of digital forecast to increase 9.1% to a share of 57.5% of all spend, a new report says.

Digital spend leads in APAC

According to Dentsu’s 2021 Global Advertising Spend forecast, the pandemic has accelerated a clear shift to digital in terms of share of ad spend in 2020 versus 2019, with the region’s digital share of ad spend accounting for 55.7% share in 2020, higher than the global average of 48% and was the largest in terms of percentage across regions globally. The growth is led by China where digital spend in 2020 accounted for US$64.7 billion (or 67% share of the market’s ad spend in 2020), up from 64.3% in 2019.

Digital share of ad spend by market

  • Hong Kong: At 72.3%, a 9% increase from 2019.
  • Singapore: At 39.8% share, up 14.4% from 2019.
  • Japan: At 47.3% share, up +7.1% from 2019.
  • South Korea: At 55.1% digital ad spend, an increase by 11% versus 2019.
  • India: At 27.9% share, an increase by 7.9% versus 2019.
  • Indonesia: At 29.6%, increasing 5.5% versus 2019.

Strong growth in mobile-first markets

Mobile-first markets, such as India and China, saw significant growth in mobile ad spend at 14.6% in China, during the period of 2019-2020. India showed strong momentum, at double the mobile ad spend in 2019-2020, growing 84% between 2019 and 2020; an increase of US$729m in this period and is predicted to grow as the pandemic continues to keep people at home.

Singapore also more than doubled the mobile ad spend to US$284m in 2020, an increase of US$161m from 2019. Vietnam’s mobile spend rose by almost half (+49.1%) in 2020 vs the previous year.

Sourced from Dentsu