Indian companies pumped up ads but that didn't help sales

• India spent ₹422 billion on advertising and promotions across sectors — 12% up from last year.
  
• It is estimated to be the second fastest growing advertising market in Asia, according to a report titled ‘Trends in advertising and sales promotion spends in India’ published by a credit rating agency CARE Ratings.
  
• The IT sector spent least — ₹10 billion — on advertising during 2019 fiscal compared to ₹9 billion last year

As digitisation spreads, more brands are now spending aggressively on advertising and promotions.

In spite of a widespread slowdown across industry, The country spent ₹422 billion on advertising and promotions in 2018-19 — up 12% from last year. India’s advertising industry is estimated to be the second fastest growing advertising market in Asia, according to a report titled ‘Trends in advertising and sales promotion spends in India’ by CARE Ratings.

In fact, the sectors with lower net sales — FMCG, healthcare and chemicals — are also spending on ads. Households and personal products, recreational clubs and TV broadcasting and software production contributed the highest share of their net-sales-to-advertising at 12%, 11% and 6% respectively.

However, Information Technology (IT) sector spends the least on advertising. According to the report, it spent nearly ₹10 billion on advertising during 2019 fiscal compared to ₹9 billion last year.

Here are the top five sectors that spent the most on advertising in 2019.