China’s Q4 spending reinforced platform consolidation, as advertisers concentrated budgets on large platforms with data, scale, and commerce integration.

China’s ad rebound remains narrow; Q4 spending stabilized, but concentrated in low-risk, performance-driven channels—signaling a cautious market entering 2026.

Global ad spending has steadied after a turbulent year, setting the stage for modest acceleration in 2026. Digital is still the main engine, but traditional media’s rebound will add lift as markets stabilize.

Asia-Pacific ad spending growth will decelerate in 2025 amid tariff pressures, with digital and mobile driving growth. China faces headwinds, India enjoys rapid growth, and retail media expands and reshapes ad strategies across the region.

An intense price war, new entrants, and new investments are fueling China’s booming instant commerce sector. Sales are expected to outpace total retail ecommerce, making lower-tier cities the next battleground.

Alibaba and JD.com embark on ambitious expansions despite challenging conditions: Both are making expensive delivery investments that could worsen China’s price wars.

Digital’s share of total media ad spending in Asia-Pacific will reach a milestone in 2025, surpassing $200 billion for the first time. The region’s digital ad spending will increase 8.6%, led by India, while China’s growth will slip noticeably amid the country’s economic struggles before a rebound the following year.

JD.com challenges Meituan’s food delivery dominance: The Chinese ecommerce giant will hire 100,000 workers to help break the latter’s hold on the industry.

JD plans $27.9 billion investment in Chinese manufacturers to ease tariff impact: Ecommerce peers Alibaba and Meituan will join to help export-oriented companies attract domestic customers.

Prosus to buy Just Eat Takeaway for $4.3 billion: The firm plans to reuse the playbook that drove growth at its Brazilian food delivery company iFood.

A series of major milestones are on tap for total media and digital media ad spending around the world in 2025, although growth will be uneven across countries and regions.

Walmart looks to accelerate its ecommerce business in China: Working with Chinese delivery app Meituan should boost the retailer’s visibility and sales.

As China’s retail media advertising market begins to mature, off-site channels—including WeChat and Douyin, TikTok's sister app in China—will increasingly drive growth.

Digital, traditional, and total media ad spending growth will all accelerate in 2024, although only modestly. The outlook has stabilized for most countries and regions, even if spectacular growth is harder than ever to find.

Our first-ever worldwide forecast for retail media ad spending shows enduring momentum and lots of good news for Amazon and other ecommerce platforms around the world.

The ad spending winter of 2022 and early 2023 was mild and short-lived, as we predicted. And after a solid H2 2023, things are looking up across the board for 2024.

Douyin, TikTok's Chinese sibling, is about to become China’s largest social platform. It's also crashing the country’s ecommerce party. Already the fourth largest online shopping platform by sales, its market share is rapidly approaching JD.com's.

In China, ecommerce channel ad spending represents over 38% of total digital ad spending, and ecommerce search spending accounts for 64.0% of total search. Could the US figures reach similar heights?

A jarring deceleration in ad spending growth has shaken the advertising industry in many parts of the world. However, this softness is not universal, and it is likely to be short-lived.

Food delivery platforms in China struggle to maintain their pandemic gains: As consumers venture out to restaurants and stores, platforms like MissFresh and Meituan are looking for new ways to keep customers on the platform.