The firm reported that advertising spend across TV, newspapers and magazines totaled US$37.1 billion at the end of the quarter.
Although China showed deceleration in growth, the broadly positive trend was highlighted by double-digit percentage increases across eight markets, with performance particularly strong in India and Indonesia (where spend rose by 32 per cent in both cases) and Hong Kong (which saw a rise of 24 per cent).
The findings showed an increase of 34 per cent on the same period in 2008, prior to the onset of the global financial crisis.
Richard Basil-Jones (pictured), managing director of Nielsen Media Asia-Pacific, attributed China’s growth deceleration to 7 per cent to rising inflation and a tightening of stimulus spending.
However, he noted that the market continued to dominate media ad spend in the region with a 68 per cent share, with consumers remaining “upbeat”.
Indeed, consumer confidence was found to be high across the region. The research indicated that nine of the ten most optimistic global markets came from Asia-Pacific, led by India.
He said the level of optimism showed in discretionary spending intention. Holidays topped the agenda at 41 per cent, followed by clothes (40 per cent), out-of-home entertainment (39 per cent), new technology (34 per cent) and home improvement (25 per cent).