ByteDance attracts 23% of China digital spend: R3 forecast

Douyin owner ByteDance now accounts for 23% of digital media investment in China and will command healthy pricing power in the year to come, according to a just-released annual media inflation trend report for China from global consultancy R3.

To prepare the report, R3 says it examines the public rate cards of more than 700 media outlets and the media buying policies of more than 20 media-agency holding companies and local agencies.

Left: Revenue trends for the four companies that take in 80% of all digital media spend. Right: ByteDance's impressive market-share growth.

Short video apps and news feeds will see up to a 10% increase in media cost in 2020 as such platforms become "a staple" for advertisers, according to R3, which adds that digital media accounted for more than 60% of spend in 2019. 

2020 inflation forecast for key short-video and news apps.
 

Changes in investment in various media through the first half of 2019.
 

Cost inflation trends (rate card and net) for various media, 2018 through 2020.

Overall, R3 reports that digital mobile media and OTT (over the top) services will lead media inflation in 2020. “Rate cards for mobile media, OTT, OOH and radio will cap at 10% next year, despite the media market slowing to 2.8% in 2019, a decrease on both Y2018 and Y2017,” says Sabrina Lee, MD at R3 China. “With 99.1% of all China’s netizens connected through mobile phones, digital will dominate advertiser investment.”

The full report also contains breakdowns of cost inflation in particular verticals and across China's different city tiers.