Internet advertising will overtake traditional TV revenue from 2026 according to Price Waterhouse Coopers. According to the research, the influence of TV in Kenya in setting the agenda in advertising is slowly fading and will soon die.
By 2026, internet advertising in Kenya will be just USD 1.2 million in revenues behind traditional television and home video, paving the way for internet advertising to overtake this segment in later years.
Music and radio will overtake newspapers and consumer magazines in 2023, driven by gains in traditional radio advertising revenue.
Video games will also overtake newspapers and consumer magazines in the same year. Despite the shifts, Internet access will remain the largest segment in Kenya’s Entertainment and Media (E&M) market across the forecast period.
“From an advertising perspective, it is the internet advertising segment that will see the largest gains in revenue terms across the five-year forecast period to 2026. This is a trend seen across South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, and also at the global level,” noted PwC report.
In South Africa, 79.7 percent of Entertainment and media revenue gained through 2026 will come from Internet Advertising and Internet access, as consumers and advertisers prioritize digital.
Across Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria, the Internet advertising sector will be driven by the mobile sub-segment, as is the case globally.
At a global level, mobile display will be the largest contributor to overall revenue added to the segment through to 2026, but in Nigeria and Kenya, it is mobile search that will see the largest gains.
In South Africa, mobile search and mobile display will add similar levels of revenues to overall segment growth in 2026.
The shift in revenue platforms is driven by data consumption, which is continuing to grow rapidly across the world, and African markets are no exception.
Mobile phones are the most popular format globally for data consumption, ahead of other devices category, which counts data consumed via devices such as smart TVs and game consoles, and the portable devices category, which includes laptops and tablets.
Fixed broadband take-up in Nigeria and Kenya is very low, with household penetration at just 6.5 percent and 7.0 percent in 2021, respectively, compared with a global average of 72.7 percent.
Connectivity is constrained by underdeveloped infrastructure, meaning the quality and speed of fixed broadband is less reliable, and consumers have instead turned to cheaper mobile packages.
