India’s advertising market just crossed a structural line: digital is no longer the biggest slice of the pie—it owns the majority. According to DCODE 2.0, a playbook released by DS Group, WPP Media and MICA, India’s total AdEx is projected to grow from Rs 1.85 lakh crore in 2025 to Rs 2 lakh crore in 2026, with digital taking 60% of all ad spend.
Traditional media now holds clearly secondary shares. Television accounts for 26% of AdEx, print for 10%, out-of-home for 2%, radio and audio for 1.2%, and cinema for 0.6%. Digital is also the fastest-growing category, with 11.1% growth forecast in 2026 versus 9.7% for total AdEx.
The growth map is concentrated
For growth teams, the most useful part of the report is where the incremental digital rupee is going. DCODE 2.0 identifies a small set of high-velocity formats:
- Retail media: nearly 20% of digital AdEx and one of the fastest-growing channels.
- Quick commerce: advertising expanding at roughly 50%.
- Connected TV: set to exceed Rs 8,000 crore in 2026.
- AI-assisted performance: budgets moving beyond lower-funnel conversion goals.
The 2026 digital definition also now includes CTV, OTT, digital publisher editions, streaming audio and digital out-of-home. That makes the line between “TV” and “digital” budgets less useful for planning, buying and measurement.
Why this matters for 2026 planning
The underlying consumer shifts are more important than the headline number. The report sees shopping moving from stores to homes, viewing from linear television to connected devices, browsing from casual to action-led, and search from traditional engines to AI platforms.
That last shift deserves a slot in your SEO roadmap. India already has about 42 crore users of AI platforms, or 29% of the population. That puts LLM users ahead of online shoppers at 36 crore (24%) and connected TV users at 20 crore (14%). Visibility is no longer only a Google problem—it is also an answer-engine problem.
Rajeev Jain, SVP – corporate marketing at DS Group, framed the change as “from standardized engagement into a landscape defined by precision and foresight.”
A screen-first framework
Instead of forcing an artificial split between traditional and digital, the report points toward screen-first planning. Mobile and CTV have become the primary video surfaces, and the money is following them. A practical starting point for your next budget cycle:
- Treat retail media as a demand-capture channel, not a leftover trade budget.
- Fund quick commerce placements for availability and visibility, not just direct response.
- Plan CTV as television inventory with digital measurement and testing.
- Track brand visibility inside LLM answers, alongside traditional SEO rankings.
The brands that win in India’s digital-majority market will likely be those that reweight budgets toward these concentrated growth pockets—while keeping measurement flexible enough to follow the consumer shift from search boxes to AI platforms.
Source: ETBrandEquity.com
