• by Karl Greenberg , April 25, 2013

In 2012, a year that saw increases in ad spend for 11 sectors worldwide, the telecommunications, consumer goods and media sectors saw the biggest increases, getting year-over-year increases of 7%, 6.8% and 5.8%, respectively.

Telecommunications is not among the top five. According to Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse Report, the category comes in 7th in 11 categories in ad spend. But that’s likely to change as markets like Latin America and the Middle East, and Africa, which saw double-digit growth (35.6% and 13.2%, respectively), will help the sector move up in the ranks in 2013, according to the report.

Meanwhile, global ad-spend leaders like health care and durables saw their spend dip last year. Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), which accounts for about a quarter of ad spend worldwide across all categories, is way above any other category, and also experienced fast-moving ad-spend increases, especially in the fourth quarter last year, in which spend rose 9.5%. 

During that quarter automotive advertising spend dropped 2.8% versus the quarter in 2011, although for the year auto saw 3.4% growth, according to the report. The sector ranks fifth based on its 7.8% share of global ad spend. Entertainment, with 12% share of spend, saw a 3.1% year-over-year increase.

Here are the global ad-spend share percentages and year-over-year change:

FMCG: 25%; up 6.8%

Entertainment: 11.8%; up 3.1%

Industry and Service: 11.2%; up 1.6%

Health care: 9.8%; down 0.7%

Automotive: 7.8%; up 3.4%

Media: 7.4%; up 5.8%

Telecom: 5.7%; up 7.0%

Financials: 5.3%; up 0.9%

Distribution Channels: 5.2%; up 5.3%

Durables: 5.0%; down 2.1%

Clothing and Accessories: 3.5%; up 2.8%

Nielsen says the Global AdView Pulse gauges its rankings on sector-by-sector media commitments to TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, outdoor, cinema and Internet display advertising, with ad spend based principally on published rate-cards. The firm says that it’s hard to get reliable spend from some markets, because the view is a bit turbid: data isn’t available for certain of the media bases.