LONDON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Spending on global advertisingwill grow 3.5 percent this year, even without the kind of boostseen in 2012 from big events like the Olympics and the U.S.election, indicating that the market is stabilising, a forecastsaid on Monday.
ZenithOptimedia said its growth forecast was unchanged fromJune, making it the first time since the second quarter of 2012it has not downgraded its forecast.
"The stability of global adspend growth this year - a yearwithout big events like the Olympics and U.S. elections - showsthat the advertising recovery is on track, promising evenstronger growth in 2014 and 2015," said Steve King, chiefexecutive of ZenithOptimedia, the forecasting unit of PublicisGroupe, the world's third-biggest advertising group bysales after WPP and Omnicom.
Zenith said the increasing popularity of mobile phones foradvertising was helping to grow the overall market, with mobilead spend forecast to account for 37 percent of all growth thisyear.
Zenith said the overall improvement underlined the stabilityit was now seeing in the global advertising market.
"Expectations for this year have finally levelled after along period of slow erosion by bad economic news," it said.
The group expects growth to climb to 5.1 percent in 2014 andto 5.9 percent in 2015, as the wider European economy recovers.
In the Eurozone ad market, it forecasts a decline of 4.3percent for 2013 followed by 0.7 percent growth in 2014 and 1.9percent growth in 2015.
It increased the forecast for adspend growth in emergingmarkets this year to 7.6 percent from 7 percent it forecast inJune.
Ad agencies Publicis and Omnicom have announced plans tomerge.