Zenith releases positive global forecasts

Zenith Media’s latest global forecasts, released today, predict annual growth of between 4.6% and 5.2% for the next three years, driven by developing markets and digital media, although “the importance of the internet is under-represented in these figures. Advertisers are investing a lot more in owned and earned media, where their activities do not count as ad expenditure in the traditional sense,” says Steve King, ZenithOptimedia’s worldwide CEO.

The rise of the developing markets sees Zenith predicting Brazil and China to grow 31% and 51% resepctively between 2010 and 2013, compared with 7%-9% for the US and big Western European markets, and 5% for Japan.

China will overtake Germany to become the world’s third-largest ad market in 2011, and Russia will enter the top ten during this period. The UK is predicted to stay as the fifth biggest market, still well shy of Germany.

Zenith sees the overall market growing by 16% between 2010 and 2013. Internet will lead the way at 48% growth and Outdoor (18%), TV and Cinema (19% each) will all out-perform the market. Radio at 10% will lag behind the market a little, but Zenith predicts a decline of 2% for newspapers and magazines.

Internet’s share will rise from 14% to 17.9%, and display – driven by video and social media – will take a 35% share of all internet advertising by 2013, Zenith estimates.

Zenith’s overall growth prediction of 4.9% for 2010 is up slightly on its 4.8% prediction in October. 4.6% global growth is expected in 2011 and 5.2% in each of 2012 and 2013.