GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, has revealed the topline findings of its End-of-Year Global Advertising Forecast for 2024. The report, which analyses advertising investments over the last 12 months and shares projections for 2025 and beyond, finds that strong performance of the largest sellers of advertising and increased digital expansion have propelled growth in global advertising investment to 9.5 per cent this year. The industry will surpass $1 trillion in total revenue for the first time in 2024 (excluding US political advertising) and grow another 7.7 per cent in 2025 to reach $1.1 trillion.

Pure-play digital advertising remains the strongest channel and is estimated to grow 12.4 per cent globally in 2024 and make up 72.9 per cent of total advertising in 2025. Retail media continues to emerge as a rapidly expanding segment within digital advertising, estimated to reach $177.1 billion globally in 2025, surpassing total TV revenue, including streaming, for the first time.

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising has maintained its share of the global advertising industry, largely due to the strong performance of its digital counterpart, DOOH, which is predicted to account for 42 per cent of total OOH revenue in 2025. Global audio revenue will remain largely flat in 2025 whereas print advertising faces further declines, largely due to increasing digitisation and the influence of AI.

All top ten advertising markets are forecast for growth in 2024, although to varying degrees. The US and China remain the two largest markets, with total ad revenue expected to grow 9 per cent to $400.2 billion and 13.5 per cent to $204.5 billion respectively. The UK remains in third place, just ahead of Japan. Germany and France maintain their rankings, followed by Canada, Brazil, India and Australia.