Adspend in Taiwan drops to record low

Taiwan's adspend has been decreasing for five consecutive years. When Nielsen first began reporting Taiwan adpsend in 2004 it totalled US$1.7 billion (NT$54.6 billion).

Leading the island's spending was the real estate sector with an annual bill of US$174 million. Other sectors also included in the top five were second-ranked beauty/pharmaceutical at US$97 million and fifth-ranked computers with US$78 million (NT$2.5 billion).

Alvin Tsui, CEO of United Communications Group, expects Taiwan's adspend to stay at its current level for the next two years. "The past few years we've seen multinational companies reallocating their Taiwan budgets to China. That is finished for now. In Taiwan, the pool of advertising dollars will stay where it is now, but there will be a lot of pitching with clients moving between agencies."

Aegis' Ann Yang was more optimistic: "We can expect to see the first upturn of adspend since 2004 but it probably won't return to the 2008 level. Digital should have double-digit growth in 2010."