Mumbai, February 25, 2026: Madison World, in association with Pitch and Exchange4Media, yesterday unveiled the Pitch Madison Advertising Report (PMAR) 2026, revealing that India’s advertising market reached ₹1,55,105 crore in 2025 under an expanded ADEX definition, growing 12% over 2024. For the first time, the report fully incorporates Quick Commerce (platform) and MSME (sector) digital spends into total ADEX, confirming that Digital already accounts for 60% of India’s ad market, with Traditional media at 40%.

On the legacy definition used in earlier editions of PMAR, the market grew 7% to ₹1,15,291 crore, with Digital at 46% and Traditional at 54%, providing a like‑to‑like lens with previous years and with competing reports. Together, the two series show the same story from different angles: headline growth is modest, but the structure of Indian ADEX has flipped decisively in favour of Digital.

India’s new ADEX reality: bigger, more Digital, and more complex

Under the expanded ADEX definition, PMAR 2026 estimates that Total Digital ADEX in 2025 stood at ₹93,156 crore (60% share), up 22% from ₹76,261 crore in 2024, while Traditional media declined 1% to ₹61,949 crore (40% share). The expanded lens includes three Digital components: core Digital (Search, Social, Video, Display, Ecommerce), advertising on Q‑Comm platforms (₹4,000 crore), and MSME sector’s Digital spends (₹35,814 crore).

Looking ahead, PMAR 2026 forecasts that, on the expanded definition, India’s ADEX will reach ₹1,74,605 crore in 2026, implying 12–13% growth and pushing Digital’s share to about 64% (₹1,11,976 crore), with Traditional at 36%. On the old definition, ADEX is expected to grow about 9% to roughly ₹1,25,600 crore in 2026, underlining that incremental market value is now coming primarily from new‑age Digital ecosystems rather than legacy media.

3 engines powering India’s ADEX: Large Screen, Retail Media, and MSME

PMAR 2026 identifies three structural engines behind India’s advertising growth:

1. Large Screen (TV + CTV): growth despite a TV volume crash

In 2025, Linear TV ADEX fell 5% to ₹32,855 crore, and TV ad volumes dropped 10%, driven by FMCG cuts, smaller advertiser exits, and genre-level shifts away from commodity GECs. Yet when Connected TV (CTV) is added, Large Screen (TV+CTV) still grew to ₹38,855 crore, up around 4%, with CTV alone doubling to an estimated ₹6,000 crore.

For 2026, PMAR forecasts Large Screen ADEX to rise further to about ₹40,855 crore (+5%), with CTV expected to grow by another third to about ₹8,000 crore, even as Linear TV remains flat in value. This confirms that “TV is dead, long live Large Screen”: video budgets are being redistributed from Linear TV to CTV and premium sports/impact properties rather than exiting the television screen altogether.

2. Retail Media: from sidebar to growth engine

Within core Digital, advertising on major E-Commerce platforms reached ₹10,257 crore in 2025, growing 27% over 2024, making it one of the fastest‑growing components of Digital ADEX. In parallel, Quick Commerce (Q‑Comm) advertising on platforms like Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart scaled from ₹1,325 crore in 2024 to ₹4,000 crore in 2025, a 202% jump.

PMAR 2026 projects Q‑Comm ADEX to reach around ₹6,000 crore in 2026, implying 50% growth in a single year and cementing Q‑Comm’s status as a core performance engine in Indian advertising. Retail Media (E-Comm + Q‑Comm) is now a five‑figure‑crore opportunity that connects media directly to commerce outcomes, far beyond the “experimental” budgets of a few years ago.

3. MSME Digital: the ₹35,814 crore invisible majority

PMAR 2026 estimates that MSME sector’s Digital advertising spends stood at ₹35,814 crore in 2025, up 21% over 2024, and are expected to grow a further 20% to about ₹42,976 crore in 2026. This means MSME digital budgets already represent about 38% of expanded Digital ADEX, making this “invisible majority” of small and mid-sized advertisers collectively almost as large as either Linear TV or Print as standalone media.

By explicitly incorporating MSME spends into the expanded ADEX series, PMAR 2026 shows that India’s advertising economy is being reshaped from below—through millions of smaller Digital buyers, not just the largest 200 advertisers.

Five imperatives for brands in a majority‑Digital India.

Based on the data, PMAR 2026 distils five imperatives for marketers and agencies:

1. Make Digital the planning spine, not a bolt‑on
   With core Digital at 46% of ADEX on the old series and around 60% on the expanded definition in 2025, Digital infrastructure—data, signals, measurement and optimization—must become the starting point of planning, not the add‑on. TV, Print, OOH and Radio remain critical, but they must now be layered onto a Digital spine.
2. Treat Large Screen as one system (TV + CTV), not as TV vs Digital
   Advertisers must plan Large Screen as a single strategic bucket, with Linear TV and CTV as levers inside it: TV for mass reach, live sports and tentpoles; CTV for affluent, measurable reach and integration into Digital journeys. This requires moving beyond siloed TV and OTT buys to system‑level Large Screen planning.
3. Take a position in Retail Media ecosystems
   With Retail Media (E-Comm + Q‑Comm) now contributing thousands of crores in ADEX, brands can no longer treat them as experiments. PMAR 2026 urges marketers to make deliberate strategic choices: where to lead, where to follow, and where to abstain, designing full media‑to‑money loops from Large Screen and Digital video through to E-Commerce marketplaces and Q‑Comm shelves.
4. Recognize Digital majority as a structural breakpoint, not a headline
   Under the expanded definition, India crossed Digital majority in 2024 (55%) and reached 60% in 2025, a threshold many mature markets took much longer to hit. PMAR argues that this is not just a statistic; it demands new organizational structures, new measurement systems, and new decision‑rights inside marketing teams.
5. Move from campaign‑led to system‑led, AI‑native planning
   With growth slowing and capital tighter, PMAR 2026 argues that system‑of‑effects planning—integrating Attention, Memory, Response and commerce outcomes—is the only sustainable way to outperform the market. Madison’s own Madison 3.0 architecture—anchored in the Growth Planning System (GPS) and the MbrAIn agentic intelligence platform—is presented as an example of how agencies must evolve from buying media to engineering advantage.

Madison vs global benchmarks: from forecasts to measured reality

Over the last 18 months, several global networks and consultancies have projected that India’s ADEX will become 50–60% Digital “in the next few years”, with Retail Media and CTV highlighted as key future growth drivers. PMAR 2026 goes a step further by fully incorporating Q‑Comm and MSME Digital into its market sizing, demonstrating that India has already reached 60% Digital share on a ₹1.55 lakh crore base in 2025.

By publishing both the old series (for continuity and comparability) and an expanded series that reflects ground reality, PMAR 2026 positions itself as the most comprehensive lens on India’s ADEX, and reinforces Madison’s role as the homegrown benchmark in a space dominated by global holding companies.

Says Mr. Sam Balsara, “Every year, people ask if Indian advertising is slowing down. PMAR 2026 tells a different story: headline growth has moderated, but the market has quietly crossed ₹1.55 lakh crore and 60% Digital share when you count what actually matters—Retail Media advertising, and MSME ad spends. India is not just catching up with global benchmarks; in many ways, it is leapfrogging them with its own Digital‑first engines.”

Says Mr. Ajit Varghese, “PMAR 2026 confirms what we are building Madison 3.0 around: growth will not come from buying more media, but from engineering better systems. Large Screen must be planned as TV plus CTV, Retail Media must be wired into commerce outcomes, and MSME‑like Digital behaviours are reshaping how demand is created and captured. Our Growth Planning System and MBrain are designed for exactly this world—where every rupee has a clear job and every channel is part of a measurable system of effects.”

Figures at a glance:

India ADEX 2025 Actual and 2026 Forecast (₹ Crores)

Medium	2025 Actual	2025 (Share)	2026 Forecast	2026F (Share)	2026F vs 2025 (Growth)
TV (Linear)	32,855	21.18%	32,855	18.82%	0%
Print	20,866	13.45%	21,388	12.25%	2.5%
Radio	2,515	1.62%	2,388	1.37%	-5.05%
Cinema	877	0.57%	921	0.53%	5.02%
Outdoor	4,835	3.12%	5,077	2.91%	5.01%
Total Traditional	61,948	39.94%	62,629	35.87%	1.10%
Digital (Includes E-comm + CTV)	53,342	34.39%	63,000	36.08%	18.11%
Digital – Q-Comm	4,000	2.58%	6,000	3.44%	50%
Digital – MSME	35,814	23.09%	42,976	24.61%	20%
Total Digital	93,156	60.06%	111,976	64.13%	20.20%
Total ADEX	155,104	100%	174,605	100%	12.57%

Full report can be downloaded from: https://e4mevents.com/pitch-madison-advertising-report-2026/download-report

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