Global advertising expenditure is projected to reach $1.19 trillion this year, an 8.9% increase according to WARC, upgrading its forecast by 1.5 percentage points since the September report.
Growth will be led by the big tech platforms, WARC said, also pointing to a “muted” impact on global trade from tariffs.
For 2026, WARC anticipates a 9.1% increase to $1.3 trillion, moderating to 7.9% in 2027 to $1.4 trillion.
Alex Brownsell, head of content at WARC Media, and author of the report, Global Ad Trends: Media’s New Normal report, commented, “Advertising has broken away from the economic cycle, and behaves in a way that doesn’t feel reflective of the real economy. New money has arrived from digital-native categories, while commerce has redrawn the measured media map, and Big Tech’s self-reinforcing flywheel is harvesting almost all incremental dollars.”
Alphabet, Amazon and Meta command a 56.1 percent share of ad spend outside of China, with WARC projecting this grows to 58% in 2026.
WARC projects 2025 video revenues of $174.9 billion, a contraction of almost 4% this year, with just a 0.8% gain anticipated next year. TV slipped by almost 8 percent this year to $133.9 billion, with this contraction slowing to 2.7 percent this year and next. VOD, meanwhile, is anticipated to grow by 13% to $41 billion this year, continuing double-digit growth (12.2 percent) in 2026.
In the separate online video category, WARC projects $50.6 billion this year, a 13.2% increase, of which YouTube will account for $41.3 billion, a 14.4% increase.
The U.S. will remain the biggest ad market, accounting for 35.3% of the global total, an 8.9% gain this year, with the World Cup delivering a 7% increase next year. China will grow by almost 7% this year for a global share of just under 17%. The U.K. has bumped Japan out of the number three position, projected to grow by 9.3% in 2025 to $58.1 billion. Japan will only see a 4.6% boost in 2025 to almost $39 billion.
