India’s USD 13 per-capita ad spend signals headroom: WARC

Global advertising investment is expected to rise 11.9% to USD 1.34 trillion in 2026, according to WARC Media’s latest Global Ad Spend Forecast update. The rise comes despite consumer caution and geopolitical uncertainty. But for India’s CMOs, the sharper signal is the gap in advertising intensity: India’s forecast ad spend per capita is USD 13 in 2026, against USD 1,395 in the US.

01 · Why the per-capita gap matters

The report draws on advertising spend data from 100 markets and more than two million data points. Per-capita figures put India somewhere different from other large economies: China is forecast at USD 170, Brazil at USD 110, the UK at USD 935 and Austria at USD 850. That spread is not a simple ranking to copy; it is a measure of advertising intensity, or how much of the economy is being contested across paid media.

For Indian brand teams, a USD 13 figure is best read as headroom rather than as a sign of weak spending. It reflects a large population base, lower media pricing and an ad market still formalising. The practical question is how quickly budgets can move into channels where accountability is highest.

02 · Where the money is flowing

Social media, search and retail media are again the engines. The three performance-heavy channels are expected to account for 66.4% of global ad spend in 2026, and their combined share is projected to reach 70% by 2028. Social media is forecast to grow fastest among major channels; video-on-demand, retail media, search and digital out-of-home are also expected to record double-digit increases.

WARC attributes the market’s resilience partly to corporate investment in AI and to major events including the Olympics, FIFA World Cup and US mid-term elections.

03 · AI is creating new ad destinations

AI is doing two jobs at once. It is lifting spend through technology companies’ own investment, and it is being used more heavily for targeting, creative production and campaign optimisation. The report also notes a structural shift: as generative search and AI assistants become entry points for product discovery, advertising budgets are likely to follow consumers into those environments.

The platform concentration is stark. Alphabet, Amazon and Meta are forecast to take 59.7% of global ad spend excluding China in 2026, equivalent to USD 659.6 billion. By 2028 WARC expects their combined share to reach 61.5%, or USD 804.1 billion.

04 · Category growth worth watching

• Technology and electronics: forecast to grow 20.7%, with social media taking 40.2% of category spend.
• Travel and transport: forecast to rise 19.3%.
• Automotive: expected to grow 17.8%.

05 · What this means for Indian CMOs

The forecast supports a dual agenda. First, keep investing in the performance channels where consumers are already transacting; social, search and retail media are taking a growing share of every market. Second, build for AI-assisted discovery now, because search behaviour will not pause while budgets catch up. The per-capita gap tells Indian marketers they have more runway than saturated Western markets, but it also means measurement and unit economics will decide who captures that growth profitably.

Suzy Young, head of WARC Media Data, puts the broader picture in context: “Investment is accelerating even as many consumers face cost-of-living pressures and become more cautious with spending.” Her caveat is worth pinning to the wall: growth from the AI boom is uneven, and it is benefiting some companies, sectors and consumers more than others.

Source: Manifest

Mad About Marketing Desk The strategists and writers at Mad About Marketing, writing up what we see in the work every week.