FTI Consulting Projects Online Ad Spending to Reach $123 Billion by 2021

Digital Market Share, Driven by Mobile Search, Social and Video, Could Reach 80% in 20 Years

FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN) today announced the findings of its 2018 Advertising Forecast, which projects that digital advertising revenue will capture 49% of the U.S. advertising market by 2021, up from 36% at the end of 2017. Digital will continue to take share from traditional media sectors over the next five years.

The forecast, which is produced annually by the Telecom, Media & Technology practice at FTI Consulting, is based on a proprietary econometric model that projects ad spending across various types of media, including the internet, television, radio, newspapers, magazines and direct mail, through 2021. FTI Consulting anticipates that online ad spending will increase at a rate of 11.1% per year, from $84.2 billion in 2016 to $122.9 billion through 2021. According to the forecast, digital media could capture as much as 80% of the ad market share over the next 20 years.

“The market-share gain in digital advertising in recent years has been unprecedented and has far outstripped the share gains experienced by TV or cable after their introductions in the 1950s and 1970s, respectively,” said Christopher T. Nicholls, a Senior Managing Director in FTI Consulting’s Telecom, Media & Technology practice and co-author of the forecast. “Just last year, our end-state penetration estimate for digital was approximately 60%, but we have revised that upward dramatically because of the rapid rise of mobile and video ads. Digital advertising has a 36% market share today, and with ads for mobile devices and mobile video growing at a rate of 17% to 20% per year, we expect continued gains for the foreseeable future.”