Bain and Co. sees India’s digital ad market hitting $19 billion by 2029

India’s digital advertising market is expanding at about 15% a year and is on track to hit $19 billion, or about 70% of the country’s total ad spending of $29 billion, by 2029, a Bain & Company report showed.

Ad spending in India, now around 0.4% of gross domestic product (GDP), will rise to about 0.5% by the end of the decade, growing faster than the economy itself, the report, Advertising in the Digital Age, in India and Around the World, said.

Small and medium businesses are playing a bigger role, with their share of digital ad budgets expected to climb from 37% in 2024 to over 40% by 2029.

Globally, advertising has become a $1 trillion market, with digital accounting for nearly $690 billion and growing at 15%–20% a year.

While North America still leads in overall spending, Asia-Pacific is set to expand faster, driven by rising internet use, demographics, and e-commerce in markets such as India.

Digital already makes up more than half of ad spending in India and is projected to rise to 60-70% by 2029.

Mobile is driving this growth, attracting nearly 70% of digital budgets worldwide, with in-app ads taking close to 90% of that.

In India, people now spend nearly five hours a day on their phones, up from less than four hours in 2019, making video ads the most engaging format.

Connected TV is also gaining ground, with Indian households adopting smart TVs at a rapid pace, doubling from 20 million in 2022 to nearly 45 million in 2024.

The Bain report noted that advertisers face growing pressure to deliver relevant, less intrusive ads as consumers reject irrelevant content and tighten privacy controls.

Rules such as India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, Europe’s GDPR, and California’s CCPA are hastening the shift from third-party cookies to first-party data.

Artificial intelligence and generative AI are set to become core to this shift, the report said, helping optimize campaigns, model audiences, and personalize ads at scale.

Bain said leading marketers are diversifying beyond Google and Meta, creating mobile-first campaigns, allocating more to performance marketing, setting aside budgets for continuous test-and-learn efforts, and building strong first-party data engines.

Publishers will need to adapt by making platforms more engaging, personalizing content, and enabling data sharing with advertisers.

Adtech firms are also moving into bigger roles, offering full-stack services that include smarter targeting, cross-channel measurement, and real-time intelligence.