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China鈥檚 digital ad sector grows 12.1% in 2024: Economic slowdown shifts ad dominance to platforms like Tencent and Pinduoduo.

The domestic services in the group included BesTV, Bilibili, Douyu, Huya, Mango TV, PPTV, Sohu, Tencent, Tmall Box Office, and Youku. There wasn鈥檛 much variation in viewership rates among different demographic groups. TV usage across gender, age group, income, and household location was fairly consistent, pointing to the format鈥檚 pervasiveness in China.

Tech giants ByteDance, Baidu, and Tencent have all launched AI chatbots to capitalize on this trend.

That said, China鈥檚 triumvirate of leading sub OTT platforms (Tencent Video, Youku, and iQiyi) already have far more viewers in China than US-only providers like Hulu and Peacock have garnered. Click here to view our full forecast for digital video viewers in China or subscription OTT video viewers in China. Behind the Numbers.

Earlier this year, MoneyGram partnered with Tencent to capitalize on China鈥檚 large remittance market. And in May, marking a major milestone that was years in the making, a Mastercard joint venture began processing domestic transactions in China using a Mastercard-branded card issued by a local bank.

A series of major milestones are on tap for total media and digital media ad spending around the world in 2025, although growth will be uneven across countries and regions.

From the rise of sophisticated AI-driven tools to new policies reshaping data privacy and competition, 2025 promises to be a year of relentless change. Companies that adapt will thrive, while others risk being left behind in a swiftly moving market.

As China鈥檚 retail media advertising market begins to mature, off-site channels鈥攊ncluding WeChat and Douyin, TikTok's sister app in China鈥攚ill increasingly drive growth.

Mastercard expanded its relationship with Alipay this year to include remittances, while Visa partnered with Tencent in 2023 to enable remittances in WeChat Pay wallets. MoneyGram and Western Union have forged similar partnerships.

Digital, traditional, and total media ad spending growth will all accelerate in 2024, although only modestly. The outlook has stabilized for most countries and regions, even if spectacular growth is harder than ever to find.

Content delays have hurt Tencent Video. We forecast viewers of the service to decrease by 1.0% in 2023. However, Tencent Video will hold on to the top spot for OTT with the most viewers in China this year (269.8 million). With highly anticipated shows such as 鈥淭hree-Body鈥� and 鈥淟ost You Forever鈥� slated for 2023, we expect Tencent Video viewer growth will be back in positive territory in 2024 at 3.0%.

Like many other payment providers globally, Alibaba is opening up its walled garden to fight off antitrust scrutiny

Only China鈥檚 own players, like iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Youku, will be able to leverage the 68.3% of internet users who will watch sub OTT platforms. India will have 13.0% of worldwide sub OTT viewers in 2024, but eventually that figure should grow much higher. Only 39.9% of internet users in India will be sub OTT viewers, one of the lower figures among the countries we track.