Sri Lanka – In 2020, the Sri Lankan advertising market contracted by -9% amid the Coronavirus crisis and political and economic turmoil in the country, where real GDP fell by -3.6%, before recovering by +13% in 2021, according to a global ad market study by Mediabrands’ intel arm MAGNA. In the upcoming year 2022, further growth of +11% is anticipated in the Sri Lankan market, to be driven primarily by digital formats (+26%).
Said sighted growth for the upcoming year is a slight slowdown from 2021 (+13%). Across the APAC region, digital emerged as the backbone of growth, with all digital formats expected to see another year of double-digit growth with +51% for video, +26% social, +23% for search, and +18% for display. In total, digital advertising revenues are expected to reach $140m for the region, or a 36% market share.
Linear formats will also see some growth in APAC, though on a smaller scale. Television (+5%), radio (+8%), and OOH (+17%) will see the strongest growth in the region, while print is forecasted to decline slightly by -3%. The report noted that 2023 will bring continued recovery for most linear ad formats, again with the exception of print, but over the long term, MAGNA anticipates digital will continue to gain market share at the expense of linear media channels.
In other markets in the South Asia region such as in India and Pakistan, the ad market is also fairly looking up. Indian net ad sales revenue grew +14% in 2021 to reach $8.9b, where growth is expected to accelerate in 2022 to fuel an ad revenue increase of +15%.
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, linear net advertising revenues are expected to grow by +5% in 2022, a slight slowdown from 2021 growth of +6%.
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