We have been witnessing a string of reports in press this year that most Two-wheeler companies have posted healthy sales growths. The same has also been driven by a huge advertising thrust that we have seen over the last few months reaching a stage where Two-wheelers have emerged as the top advertising product category in Press Spends this year so far.

The Jan-Oct Press ADEX numbers show that Two-wheelers have jumped from being the 4th largest category on press to the number 1 slot! In fact, the changes in the category ranking straight away point to the changing flavor of the Indian economy. For instance, as the software sector moves into a slowdown, Computer Education as a category has moved down from the 3rd largest press category last year to the 15th place!

On the other hand, consumers have been turning to Real Estates and Properties as the only viable investment option with a low interest rate regime and a sluggish stock market. That is also reflected in the fact that Real Estate/ Properties as a category has been moving up in terms of its ad spends on Press (Display). Ranked 165th in 1994 it moved up to Rank 7th last year. This year it's moved up to the Number 4 position! What's also amazing about this category is the amount of ads that you see in the Display category (Traditionally, Real Estate and Properties ads would be confined to Classifieds only)

So the question is which have been the fastest growing categories in Press spends… and which categories have slashed spends levels. The charts shown below address these issues.

While categories such as Two Wheelers, Properties/ Real Estates and Cellular Phone Service have shown growths in Press spends… others like Mutual Funds, Refrigerators, Computer Education and Garments have shown steep downfalls.

The analysis has been done from TAM Press ADEX till the 1st three-quarters this year (Jan-Oct 2002). In another few weeks, we will look at how has the Consumer Electronics segment got affected this festive season in terms of their print spends. That should again be fairly interesting to plot! Watch this space for more!

Atul Phadnis, director, S-Group, TAM Media Research
[All numbers are display revenues for print- courtesy TAM Press ADEX]