APAC to overtake North America as world's largest digital ad market
Digital ad spend in Asia-Pacific (APAC) will rise 18.2% to $59.7bn in 2016 compared with growth of 9.6% to $59.5bn in North America, according to a report from Strategy Analytics. China will outstrip its neighbours with a 25.1% gain to $22.4bn. The gap between APAC and North America will reach 33% in five years, it predicts. However, spend per capita in APAC is $15, compared to $165 in North America and $95 in Western Europe.

APAC will become the world’s biggest digital advertising market for advertising for the first time this year, overtaking the US.

According to Strategy Analytics’ Advertising Forecast report, digital ad spend in Asia-Pacific will rise 18.2 per cent in 2016 to $59.7 billion, whilst North America will rise 9.6 per cent to $59.5bn.

This is largely driven by an increase in digital ad spend in China this year, helping the APAC region just tip over the US. China’s digital ad spend will grow ahead of the APAC average at 25.1 per cent to $22.4bn this year.

Strategy Analytics predicts that the APAC digital market will be worth 33 per cent more than the US in the next five year.

It’s not just China that’s helping cement APAC as the biggest digital market, however. The region constitutes half of the six biggest ad markets globally with China the second largest digital ad market, Japan fourth and Korea sixth. The other two markets to make up the six is the UK and Germany.

According to Michael Goodman, Strategy Analytics’ digital media director, it’s a case of scale.

“Advertising is about 'eyeballs' and the sheer scale of the Chinese market, along with India and Indonesia, is why Asia-Pacific will overtake North America this year, despite underlying economic weakness in some economies. Millions just can’t compete with billions,” he said.

The report also looked at spend per capita and found that, looking at this metric, scale pushes APAC down to the bottom end of the global scale. North America spends $165 per person on digital advertising, followed by Western Europe $95. Asia-Pacific, due to its huge population, means spend per person is a low $15.