As the US$ 300 Billion Adtech industry continues to gain, the stock market circles too appear to have noticed the same and have created a new set of billionaires. The Brightcom Group, for instance, has joined the billionaires league of Adtech industry, dominated by the US-based TradeDesk with Marketcap of 34.44 US$ Bn, followed by China-based Mobvista at US$ 11.33 Bn, and Japan-based Cyberagent valued at US$ 9.97 US$ Bn. Brightcom Group provides comprehensive online or digital marketing services to: direct marketers, brand advertisers, and marketing agencies, delivering over 60 billion impressions in a month. This is a proud moment for India as our companies are rubbing shoulders with their global peers.
| Company Name | Country | Markecap (US$ Bn) |
| TradeDesk        | USA | 34.44 |
| Mobvista | China | 11.33 |
| Cyberagent | Japan | 9.97 |
| Digital Turbine | USA | 7.21 |
| Alteryx | USA | 4.59 |
| Magnite | USA | 3.45 |
| Cardlytics | USA | 2.61 |
| Tech Target | USA | 2.31 |
| Criteo | France | 2.16 |
| Affle | India | 2.05 |
| Vertoz | USA | 1.19 |
| Brightcom Group | India | 1.05 |
| Quinstreet | USA | 0.97 |
| Freakout | Japan | 0.3 |
The Global Digital Ad spend which is at about $ 300 Billion is estimated to cross $ 500 Billion by 2025. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the marketers quickly pivoted and spent 20% more on online ads during the period as against the same period the year before.
With social distancing and stay-at-home orders in place, more people are spending more of their everyday lives online. Consumers are spending more time on in-home media consumption. Data from China, Korea, and Italy suggest significant increases in TV viewing and digital media consumption.
The regular TV viewing increased by approximately 10%, while news programmes and news channels audience grew by 30% or more. Digital media consumption, mainly social media and digital video, also increase by about 30%. Smartphone usage is up 70% more. Mobile gaming relies on advertising as well; 55% of US consumers have increased time playing mobile games. Subscription video companies have also seen a surge in traffic and subscriptions and are more immune to advertiser shocks.
Owing to Covid, marketers were initially forced to re-examine the shows and events marketing channels which witnessed significant cancellations and postponements. The businesses are shifting a portion of the budget to digital advertising channels. This trend benefited Adtech companies.
Digital industry did emerge as a clear winner here, and companies – including ones that may not so much as had a Facebook page before – will need to move into a brave new world that rubs elbows with the likes of LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and HubSpot.
The Digital Trend Is Clear.…
With this trend in mind, let’s look at the digital transformation market. Facebook recently bought a 10 per cent stake in Reliance Jio for a hefty sum of forty-four thousand crores. They plan to transform the vast business of kirana-retailing in the last mile. Mixing of WhatsApp with JioMart to leverage the 400-million database will jump-start smart retailing across India.
Reliance Jio, saw the opportunity to digitally transform the kirana shop business into a multi-billion dollar opportunity by bringing in the appropriate digital partner, Facebook. Together, they plan to empower three crore kirana stores in the neighbourhood into the magical world of digital commerce. The strategy is being touted as the ‘phygital commerce’ game plan, where local kirana store is on WhatsApp, and one can send them a message to order your groceries. This may eventually lead to the selling of more things like mobile connections, media, music, and education at kirana stores. Word on the street is that Jio and Facebook, together, are gunning to be the WeChat of India.
That is the power of thinking out of the box in taking today’s regular brick-and-mortar business into a tech-savvy multi-billion dollar pan-India solution. If a simple kirana store business can be upgraded into modernity using digital transformation, so can many other businesses that are primed up for it.
Conclusion
The Indian Indian Advertising industry is also following the global footprint, and as many as 20% of all advertising spends now attributed to the digital segment in 2020 (but still way below median share of digital spends at about 34% globally).
The Emerging markets growth will also be driven by 1) Smartphone Penetration 2) Low Data Cost 3) Increased Screen time 4) User Acquisition spree by Startups Ad-Tech Industry (Digital) that is growing at a fast cliff and is expected to reach INR 282Bn by CY22 (CAGR of 20% over CY2019-22).
