India’s digital AdEx growth converging globally, but in a balanced way: Sam Balsara

The Pitch Madison Advertising Report (PMAR) 2026, released yesterday (February 24), mapped a defining inflection point in India’s advertising evolution. If the past decade was about digital catching up, 2025, the report argues, is the year digital became the default.

In a keynote session titled “Media 2026: What Broke, What Scaled, What Still Matters,” Sam Balsara, Chairman of Madison World, laid out the structural shifts reshaping the industry, not as a story of hype, but of hard reallocation.

“It may look as if our market has slowed down,” Balsara began. “But dig a little deeper, and you will find that a lot has indeed happened in the advertising world.” 

He placed the shift in a decade-long context. In 2016, India’s advertising market stood at ₹49,480 crore, dominated by traditional media with nearly three-fourths share, while digital remained a challenger. Over the next 10 years, the balance steadily shifted. By 2025, under the legacy definition, AdEx has grown to ₹1,15,291 crore, up 7%, with traditional media at 54% and digital at 46%.

From this year onward, PMAR has expanded its scope to include e-commerce advertising and MSM digital spends. Under this broader definition, the market is estimated at ₹1,55,105 crore, growing 12%, with digital’s share rising to 60%, leaving traditional at 40%.

“This is the new reality in 2025,” Balsara said. “Digital has crossed the majority. And once you cross 50%, the spine flips.”

He noted that digital share has climbed from 52% in 2023 to 55% in 2024 and now 60% in 2025. Globally, digital holds a 79% share of the $1.19 trillion advertising market. India, he argued, is converging, but in its own balanced way.

What Broke

If there was one defining shift in 2025, it was the move from expansion to reallocation.

For the first time in the post-pandemic recovery cycle, traditional media declined in absolute terms, down ₹739 crore, even as the overall market grew. Digital, under the expanded definition, added nearly ₹17,000 crore.

“India has shifted from expansion to reallocation,” Balsara said. “Advertisers are not experimenting with digital anymore. They are cutting traditional budgets in absolute terms and moving money.”

Linear TV bore the brunt. AdEx fell 5%, volumes dropped 10%, and nearly 500 advertisers exited. But Balsara was quick to clarify: “TV is not dead. Advertisers are cutting cheap tonnage, not abandoning the screen.”

FMCG’s pullback from traditional, ₹779 crore in 2025 alone, was another signal. “This is not budget cutting. This is relocation,” he stressed, pointing to the shift toward sports, retail media, quick commerce and performance digital.

What Scaled

Digital’s rise to 60% was powered by three explosive engines — quick commerce, MSM digital spends and connected TV (CTV).

Quick commerce advertising has surged from ₹300 crore in 2023 to ₹4,000 crore in 2025 and is projected to hit ₹6,000 crore in 2026. “Quick commerce is no longer experimental. It is mandatory infrastructure,” Balsara said, describing it as a full-funnel system combining discovery, consideration and instant purchase.

MSM digital spends reached ₹35,814 crore in 2025, accounting for 38% of total digital. “This is the parallel universe most large advertisers ignore,” he remarked. Performance-first, auction-driven and always-on, MSM advertisers are shaping pricing benchmarks and platform roadmaps.

CTV, meanwhile, doubled to ₹6,000 crore in 2025. When combined with linear TV, large-screen advertising actually grew. “Video budgets are not disappearing. They are redistributing,” Balsara observed. 

What Still Matters

Even in a 60% digital market, Balsara cautioned against over-correcting. “Performance without brand is a sugar high. It delivers short-term sales at escalating costs,” he said, reiterating the relevance of the 60:40 brand-to-activation balance.

India, he argued, has entered the allocation era. “The question is no longer how much we spend. It is where each rupee goes.”

He called for explicit trade-offs, integrated measurement, marketing mix modelling and system thinking over siloed KPIs. “In a high-growth market, mistakes get covered by the rising tide. In a maturing market, bad allocation gets punished immediately.”

As PMAR 2026 underscores, the debate is no longer digital versus traditional. It is about disciplined allocation in a market where digital dominance is no longer emerging, it has arrived.