Advertising spending share in India 2023, by category

The FMCG sector was the largest investor in the Indian advertising industry in 2023. With 34 percent of the total spending, the vertical invested more than 300 billion Indian rupees into advertising that year. Other major investors included the e-commerce and the consumer durables industries. 

The future of Indian advertising belongs to digital

With a rising digital population, India is one of the fastest-growing digital economies in the world. Both the public and private sectors in the country have shown an optimistic consumption growth. The advertisement business is no stranger to this transition. Despite the affordable pricing, broader reach, and immense popularity have led to tremendous expansion, digital advertising has not yet overtaken the conventional means yet. In 2019, television advertising, with more than 300 billion Indian rupees in revenue, was still ahead of digital marketing. However, with a faster growth rate and estimated ad revenue of over 530 billion Indian rupees by the fiscal year 2024, digital advertising is set to become the leading advertising medium of future India.

India’s digital classifieds market

The arrival of technology and the decline of the print media resulted in a shift of the classifieds advertising from a classical platform like the newspaper to contemporary digital media. India, with rising urbanization and availability of cheap internet to a young population, also saw enormous growth in the digital advertising field. In financial year 2020, the projected value of this market was more than 20 billion Indian rupees. Within the sector, matrimonial services had a high value.
For market expansion and better service, the majority of platforms switched to mobile-based applications. Portals such as OLX and Quikr incorporated more regional languages as well. Consequently, mobile phones generated as much as 80 percent of the market’s traffic.