Media agencies predicted that China and India would continue to be the main drivers in Asia this year, although they believe that a significant upturn will not occur until the third quarter.
Steve King, the worldwide chief executive of Zenith Media, said: "Expectations of improved corporate profitability in the US is up because companies have already taken drastic remedial action. Hopefully, we'll see signs of this over the coming months."
However, media agencies observed that given the heavy discounting that occurred to beat the worst of the global economic slump, numbers for some of the markets last year appeared to be skewed towards the high side.
They pointed, in particular, to Hong Kong, where adspend jumped 6.9 per cent to $3.8 billion. OMD Asia chief executive officer, Mike Cooper, said the adspend numbers "paint a hopelessly rosy picture" because discounts are not reflected.
Cooper also pointed to the fact that the ad revenue for Hong Kong's cable and terrestrial channels dropped 13 per cent last year.
ACNielsen countered the critcism, saying actual prices were difficult to ascertain because they were "commercially sensitive".
MediaCom media research and strategic planning director, Adrian King, said: "The rule of thumb we use is that the figures are over-inflated by between 25 to 30 per cent.
"But as long as all the data is over-inflated by the same margin we can still do our planning work with accuracy. The data isn't perfect but it's the best you'll get."
