2022GLOBAL END -OF -YEARFORECASTDECEMBER 2022A Report From GroupM, WPP’s Media Investment Group
DECEMBER 2022 • THIS YEAR NEXT YEAR IGLOBAL END-OF-YEAR FORECAST2INTRODUCTIONUNCERTAIN TIMES2023 OUTLOOKMAIN STREAMTOP 10 MARKET DATAGLOBAL SUMMARY DATA TABLE030613142132MEDIA TRENDS16CONTACT33
INTRODUCTION3ADVERTISINGHAS PERHAPSNEVER BEEN MORE TOP-OF-MINDOR MORE INTHE PUBLIC EYE THAN IT HASBEEN IN THE LASTSIX MONTHS. Not only due to the recent wall-to-wall news coverage of the critical role it plays inunderpinning the business of social media, but also because in a world beset byeconomic uncertainty, advertising has been thrust into the spotlight as a sort ofbellwether for Big Tech and retail commerce. Held up to that light, the message is notaltogether negative. We now believe that global advertising growth for 2022 will be6.5%, excluding U.S. political advertising (what we call “underlying growth”). This islower than our June forecast when we estimated 8.4% growth; however, this isprimarily the effect of lowered China expectations. Ex-China, growth is forecast at 8.1%for 2022. At the midpoint of 2022 it was difficult to gauge whether the earlysigns of economic slowdown would result in more mild or severe impacts toconsumer spending, global supply chains and, ultimately, advertising revenue.Clearly, inflation has proved more intractable, as has the war in Ukraine. Andyet, only half of the 62 markets we track downgraded their growth forecast for 2022.One-third, 21 markets, upgraded their expectations, and 10 markets made no changefrom the June forecasts. It’s also important to note that, when comparing lastDecember’s forecast to this December’s, the U.S. dollar has appreciated considerablythroughout 2022, which incrementally skews growth downward due to the higherweight of the U.S. advertising market and brings down the overall size of the globalindustry, at least when denominated in U.S. dollars.DECEMBER 2022•T H I S Y E A R N E X T Y E A RIG L O B A L E N D - O F - Y E A R F O R E C A S T I INTRODUCTION
4Notably, only two of the 62 markets we track are forecasting negativegrowth in nominal terms (that is, without adjusting for inflation) in2022. A majority of markets, 35, are forecasting growth, albeit belowthe average global rate of inflation this year, which is 8.8% per theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) October 2022 World EconomicOutlook. The other 25 markets are projecting growth above globalinflation, and while some still fall below inflation levels in their owncountry (e.g., Argentina and Turkey), 16 markets are outpacing levelsof inflation at home, including Australia, Brazil, India, Kenya, Malaysia,Mexico, South Africa and South Korea.Looking at next year, when the IMF expects global inflation to dropto 6.5%, we see a similar trend with 26 markets predicting advertisinggrowth above average global inflation, 32 markets foreca...
