Regardless of financial headwinds, technological disruption and elevated geographic and trade competitors, the worldwide leisure & media (E&M) trade has continued to develop in 2023, with whole revenues rising 5 per cent in 2023 to $2.8 trillion – outpacing total financial progress cited by the IMF – in keeping with PwC’s International Leisure & Media Outlook 2024-28.
The outlook, which covers 11 income segments throughout 53 nations and territories, finds that international E&M revenues are projected to hit $3.4 trillion in 2028, rising at a 3.9 per cent compound annual progress fee (CAGR).
Most notably, promoting income is about to hit $1 trillion in 2026 and is projected to account for greater than half (55 per cent) of whole E&M trade income progress over the subsequent 5 years.
The outlook additionally finds that streaming providers, historically depending on subscription fashions, face elevated competitors and challenges in shopper use and uptake, and need to consolidation, reside sports activities (together with mega-events just like the Summer time Olympics), a crack-down on password sharing, and ad-based fashions to drive progress.
Trying throughout the globe, the US stays the world’s largest shopper spending and promoting market (4.3 per cent CAGR to 2028), representing greater than one-third of world spending in 2023. Nonetheless, different massive markets together with China (7.1 per cent) and India (8.3 per cent), and fewer mature markets akin to Indonesia (8.5 per cent) and Nigeria (10.1 per cent), are rising extra rapidly.
“As the worldwide leisure & media trade continues to develop, market gamers face each dangers and alternatives,” advises Werner BallhausGlobal Leisure & Media Chief, PwC Germany. “Shifts in shopper preferences, and uncertainty across the continued affect of digital transformation and new and rising know-how akin to Generative AI, are inspiring a wave of enterprise mannequin reinvention. If market gamers are to achieve their share of the rising income swimming pools we determine, they should reimagine how their firm creates, delivers, and captures worth, leveraging the expansion of promoting whereas additionally harnessing the highly effective alternative introduced by AI. As customers more and more devour content material on-line, firms may even must diversify their product-offerings and proceed to attach with customers on the platforms the place they spend extra of their time.”
International promoting income is predicted to develop at a 6.7 per cent compound annual progress fee (CAGR) by way of 2028, forward of the opposite two broad E&M segments analysed: connectivity (2.9 per cent) and shopper (2.2 per cent). All of the whereas, whole promoting income is to hit $1 trillion in 2026 (whereas 2028 revenues will hit double the revenues of 2020). Promoting is projected to account for 55 per cent of the whole E&M trade’s progress over the approaching 5 years based mostly on the three broad E&M segments analysed.
Web promoting is the most important and one of many fastest-growing parts of the promoting trade. It grew 10.1 per cent in 2023, including $52.5 billion in new revenues, and is projected to rise at a 9.5 per cent CAGR by way of 2028, when it’ll account for 77.1 per cent of whole advert spending.
Streaming service utilization and shopper uptake is rising, albeit at a decrease fee than lately, as service-providers face elevated competitors and challenges in getting customers to pay extra for digital items and providers. International subscriptions to over-the-top (OTT) video providers will rise to 2.1 billion in 2028 from 1.6 billion in 2023 – representing a 5 per cent CAGR. International common income per OTT video subscription is barely anticipated to develop, rising from $65.21 in 2023 to $67.66 in 2028.
This plateauing impact is pushing main streamers to reshape their enterprise fashions and discover new revenues past subscriptions, together with the introduction of ad-based variants (decreased subscription charges with ad-filled content material), cracking down on password-sharing, introduction of reside sports activities, and trade consolidation. In developed markets, this consolidation is taking the type of bundling subscription service suppliers. By 2028, promoting will account for about 28 per cent of OTT international streaming revenues, up from 20 per cent in 2023.
International gaming, which incorporates e-sports (aggressive gaming with skilled tournaments and reside spectators), continued its streak as one of many fastest-growing massive sectors within the E&M universe, with whole income hitting $227.6 billion in 2023, up 4.6 per cent.[4] Income is on monitor to high $300 billion in 2027, virtually double its degree in 2019. Asia-Pacific stays the most important regional marketplace for gaming, representing 48.1 per cent of the section’s international whole, rising to 54.4 per cent – or $181.8 billion – in 2028.
Elsewhere inside E&M, in-person, real-life, tech-enabled experiences akin to reside music and cinema stay key progress industries, with film field workplace and music ticket gross sales representing 38.6 per cent of 2023’s internet improve in shopper spending worldwide. Pushed by massive occasions akin to musician world excursions, reside music revenues rose 26 per cent and accounted for greater than half of the general music market.
Aided by plenty of blockbuster releases in 2023, cinema noticed a 30.4 per cent year-on-year improve in spending on the field workplace. International cinema revenues are poised to surpass their pre-pandemic, 2019 ranges in 2026.
“The worldwide leisure & media trade has at all times thrived on technological disruption,” notes Wilson ChowGlobal Expertise, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Trade Chief, PwC China. “To capitalise on the various progress alternatives, it should leverage the facility of recent and rising applied sciences akin to Generative AI, re-shape enterprise and artistic fashions, and leverage the know-how for promoting. To this point, lots of the purposes of Gen AI within the E&M trade have targeted on velocity and effectivity. As we glance forward, the trade should concentrate on how Gen AI can result in larger worth creation by way of experimenting, iterating, and scaling new options and processes.”
