• by Wayne Friedman , February 2, 2016

Worldwide media usage will continue to climb slowly -- with digital media a key ingredient, as well as higher usage in still emerging markets China and India.

PQ Media projects that global media usage will grow at the 2% rate on a compounded average growth rate through the next five years, through 2019, to 49.7 hours a week, over seven hours a day.

Worldwide media use is projected to be up 2.6% in 2015 to 46.1 hours a week. In 2014, global media usage expanded 2.6% to just under 45 hours a week.

Projections are worldwide digital media will grow at more than a 9% compounded growth rate through 2019 to hit 9.2 hours a week. This would be three times the level in 2009 when it was 3.5 hours. Digital media climbed 12% in 2014, 6.3 hours a week, and 11% in 2015.

New worldwide social media networks, including Snapchat, and China’s WeChat, will contribute to this growth.

PQ Media says that traditional media alone will expand more slowly at a rate of 0.6% to 39.7 hours a week by 2019. Estimates are that traditional media was up 1.2% in 2015 to 39.12 hours -- the same rate of increase in 2014.