WPP Media revises India adex growth to 8.5% from 7% for 2025

New Delhi: WPP Media has slashed the global advertising growth for 2025 from 7.7%, as forecasted in December 2024, to 6%, with deglobalisation pressures and global trade disruptions as the primary laggards.

Releasing the mid-year global advertising forecast for 2025, as part of their TYNY (This Year Next Year) series, WPP announced that the global advertising revenue is now expected to reach 1.08 trillion dollars in 2025. 

The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) has also slumped to 5.4% between 2025 and 2030, from the previous 6.4%, forecasted between 2024-2029 by the advertising behemoth. 

India stands strong

Throwing light on the global advertising market scenario, WPP Media noted that the growth is primarily being driven by two countries - India and Brazil. The two nations, as per the mid-year analysis, are the most robust advertising markets. 

While India is expected to grow 8.4%, Brazil is leading with 11.9% growth. US, UK, and China still remain the largest advertising markets with a $404.7 billion, $55 billion, and $221.6 billion revenue forecasted for 2025, respectively. 

On the revenue generation aspect, the two drivers of growth stand at $21.3 billion (India) and $23.1 billion (Brazil). 

Earlier in February, WPP Media stated India’s adex growth rate at 7% in 2025, taking the overall ad revenue to Rs 1,64,137 crore, with an incremental Rs 10,730 crore compared to 2024.

Digital still dominates

Pure-play digital is expected to account for 73.2% of the global ad revenue in 2025, cementing the dominance of digital in the ad world. When combined with digital extensions such as streaming, OOH, and digital print, this share rises up to 81.6%

Another interesting observation under the digital umbrella is that user-generated content is overtaking professional production. According to WPP Media, more than half of the content-driven advertising revenue will come from YouTube, Instagram reels, Kuaishoi, and TikTok. 

The creator-generated revenue is expected to double by 2030. In 2025, the industry can see the revenue touching 184.9 billion, a 20% increase from 2024, before doubling to a whopping 376.6 billion in five years’ time. 

Search (Intelligence) revenue is expected to rake in 226.2 billion in 2025 registering a growth of 7.3% in 2025. 

Race with retail

As per the report, the race with retail is going to be a tough one as it has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments. In 2025, the retail media industry is expected to reach 169.6 billion dollars, eventually jumping to 252.1 billion by 2030. This, the report indicates, will make roughly 18% of all ad revenue by this decade’s end. 

Traditional talk

Coming to traditional media, TV - including streaming - is projected to grow at a slow pace of 1% in 2025, raking in 162.5 billion dollars in revenue. Streaming TV, individually, is expected to bring the revenue up by 41.8 billion dollars. By 2030, this revenue is expected to touch just a shy away from 72 billion dollars. 

OOH )Out-of-home) is being seen as a 52 billion dollar market in 2025, with 41% of it all coming from Digital OOH (DOOH). 

Print continues to slump with a forecast of negative 3.1% growth associated with it. The revenue generation is stunted to 45.5 billion dollars. Accompanying Print is audio advertising that has remained flat at 26.5 billion.