‘India has moved from an expansion phase to an allocation phase’

Sam Balsara, Chairman, Madison World, tells Neeta Nair how PMAR 2026 captures India’s digital momentum and AdEx reset

by e4m Desk
Published: Feb 25, 2026 6:10 PM | 3 min read

The Pitch Madison Advertising Report indicates a decline in India's AdEx growth, dropping from 10% in 2023 to 7% in 2025, attributed to macroeconomic challenges and a shift from expansion to allocation in advertising spending.
Digital advertising has seen significant growth, contributing Rs 8,050 Crores under the legacy definition and Rs 16,895 Crores with an expanded definition, while traditional media experienced a decline of Rs 739 Crores.
Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising surprised analysts with a 4% growth in 2025, driven by a 20% increase in real estate spending, indicating a continued investment in premium offline media.
Connected TV (CTV) also showed notable growth, doubling from Rs 3,000 Crores to Rs 6,000 Crores, suggesting that the television market is evolving rather than declining when considering both linear TV and CTV together.

The Pitch Madison Advertising Report has always been an industry guide to spends, in a rather complex Indian market. In an in-depth chat, Sam Balsara, Chairman, Madison World tells Neeta Nair, Editor of IMPACT, how 2025 just turned out to be a blockbuster year for Digital, the areas where India’s AdEx is punching above its weight in the global scheme of things and introduction of an expanded definition of AdEx that covers the MSMEs and Q-commerce, over and above the legacy one, in PMAR 2026

Q] From 10% in 2023 to 9% in 2024 and now 7% in 2025, why is AdEx growth (legacy definition) sliding? Was it just Covid catch up earlier or is there more to the story?
In pure numbers, yes, growth has slowed from 10% to 9% to 7% on the legacy AdEx definition. But that narrative is too comforting, because it suggests a natural comedown after Covid. The data says something sharper: India has moved from an expansion phase to an allocation phase.

Two things are happening together. First, macro headwinds—inflation, tighter liquidity, geopolitical uncertainty, the RMG shock—have made advertisers cautious. Second, and more important, the quality of growth has changed. Traditional media shrank by Rs 739 Crores in 2025, while Digital added Rs 8,050 Crores on the legacy view and Rs 16,895 Crores on the expanded view. Every rupee of net growth came from Digital; Traditional was a net drag.

So, the story is not ‘AdEx is slowing’, it is ‘the market is forcing discipline’. India is entering an early maturity phase where the question is no longer ‘How much more can I spend?’ but ‘How well can I allocate?’ That is uncomfortable for all of us who grew up in a world where growth was driven by buying more GRPs (Gross Rating Points) and more inches, but it is the new reality.

Q] In 2025, which mediums surprised you and which ones shocked you?
Two mediums surprised us on the upside and one shocked us.

The positive surprise was OOH. When Traditional AdEx as a whole fell 1%, OOH still grew 4% to Rs 4,835 Crores—making it the only Traditional medium with healthy growth. Real Estate alone grew 20% on OOH (Rs 1,007 Crores to Rs 1,206 Crores), pushing its share of the medium to 25%. That tells you advertisers are not abandoning physical media; they are deprioritising undifferentiated media. OOH has quietly become the premium offline anchor for a Digital journey.

The ‘expected surprise’ was CTV. Linear TV fell 5% and volumes fell 10%, but CTV doubled from about Rs 3,000 Crores to Rs 6,000 Crores. When you combine the two, Large Screen (TV+CTV) actually grew by 4% from Rs 37,453 Crores to Rs 38,855 Crores. So, TV is dead only if you insist on defining it as linear FCT; on a Large Screen view, it is evolving, not dying.