The new magic number in the Indian internet world is “500 million” – the number of internet users we expect in India by 2018. In early 2015, we were at 300 million. India took 10 years to reach the first 200 million mark,
- Early 2015: 300 million
- 2104: 243 million
- 2013: 213 million
- 2012: 155 million
- 2000: 54 million
In the next 3 years, India expects a 40% growth to hit the 500 million mark. Earlier too, India has seen a growth of over 35% y-o-y, but when the user base is big, currently at 300 million, it is no small task to maintain a 40% growth rate. Luckily, mobile, especially smartphone users, are growing rapidly in India.
Sales of smartphones in India doubled from 156 million units in 2013 to 364 million in 2014 — that growth is set to continue and take India past 500 million internet users in the coming few years, the bulk of whom will be on mobile devices.
These days it is not uncommon to come across ventures in India launching their product on mobile only.
Digital Ad Spend in India
With the growth of internet usage in India, we expect digital revenues to grow too. The following data is from the Economic Times (April 14, 2015) & eMarketer.
The current ad spend on mobile internet is still tiny in 2014/15. Hence it is easy to achieve a higher “percentage” of growth. By 2018, more than half of digital ad spend will go to mobile (total digital ad spend $1,775 million, mobile 942 million).
India’s media and spending is just 1.1% of the global total, according to eMarketer. This year, ad spending will rise 8% to just $6.6 billion, and a little over $900 million will go toward digital ads, which works out to about 14.2% of total ad spend, the third smallest share worldwide, ahead of only Argentina & Indonesia.
By 2019, digital ads will command a share of more than a quarter of total ad spending in India, ahead of even France, Spain, Italy and Brazil.
| 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total media ad spending* ($M) | 5,558.6 | 6,114.5 | 6,603.6 | 7,032.8 | 7,490 | 7,939.4 |
| Digital ad spending** ($M) | 568.6 | 739.2 | 938.8 | 1,173.5 | 1,455.1 | 1,775.3 |
| Digital ad spend as % of Total media ad spend | 10.2 | 12.1 | 14.2 | 16.7 | 19.4 | 22.4 |
| Mobile Internet ad spending*** ($M) | 26.2 | 78.7 | 173.2 | 346.5 | 589 | 942.5 |
| Mobile Internet ad spend as % of digital ad spend | 4.6 | 10.6 | 18.4 | 29.5 | 40.5 | 53.1 |
| Mobile Internet ad spend as % of total media | 0.5 | 1.3 | 2.6 | 4.9 | 7.9 | 11.9 |
| Note : Converted at the exchange rate of US $1 = Rs. 60.96 | ||||||
| * includes digital (desktop/laptop and mobile), directories, magazines, newspapers, outdoor, radio and TV ** includes advertising that appears on desktop and laptop computers as well as mobile phones and tablets, and includes all the various formats of advertising on those platforms; excludes SMS, MMS and P2P messaging-based advertising. *** includes display ( banners, vedio and rich media ) and search; excludes SMS, MMS and P2P messaging-based advertising; includes ad spending on tablets. |
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Also see,
[…] Projections usually get to be wrong. In 2011 it was projected the mobile ad market in China for 2014 would hit $1.1 billion but in reality it hit the $7 billion mark! India should prepare itself to see the same kind of growth in the mobile space. The mobile ad spend in India is set to grow from $170 million in 2015 to $942.5 million in 2018. […]