China's ad market expected to continue growing this year

China’s advertising market is predicted to grow 6.5 percent from a year ago to a total size of 630 billion yuan (US$96 billion), up from the 5.4 percent in estimated growth made in January, representing about 16.2 percent of the global ad market.

Growth will be driven by digital spending, which is forecast to make up 60 percent and increase by 14.8 percent in 2018, Dentsu Aegis Network said in its Global Adspend Forecasts.

Chinese Internet giants including Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are projected to contribute about 80 percent of this growth, underlining their dominance in the marketplace.

The China ad market is forecast to grow 6 percent in 2019, driven by a 12.5 percent increase in digital ad spending, with e-commerce spending forecast to make up 40.5 percent of total digital spending in 2019.

Globally, ad spending is forecast to grow 3.9 percent in 2018 to US$613.5 billion thanks to a more positive outlook globally, accelerating from a 3.3 percent annual increase in the previous year. 

Contribution to new global ad dollars in 2018 is driven in particular by the United States and China, which account for around one third and one quarter of new growth, respectively. Russia, India and China will be the three fastest growing markets. 

Global advertising expenditure is expected to grow at the same pace next year despite the lack of significant sporting and political events driving growth.

Digital continues to steam ahead and is forecast to increase 12.6 percent, three times the overall growth rate, with video and social media seeing the highest increases in 2018.

Ad spending through social media sites will grow 21.6 percent this year and 18.3 percent in the next year, due to a slight "leveling off" of previous growth and a slight dip due to Facebook's recent data privacy issue related to Cambridge Analytica.