US B2B media revenues are expected to grow by a compound annual rate of 3.2% from 2017 through 2022, according to PwC’s Global Media & Entertainment Outlook. The business information segment of B2B media revenues is not only the largest, but also the fastest-growing, per the report.
All told, B2B business information revenues are predicted to increase by 4.3% annually from 2017’s estimated $55.6 billion to 2022’s forecast $68.5 billion.
The business information segment is comprised of three categories: Financial; Marketing; and Industry.
Interestingly, financial business information – provided by companies such as Bloomberg, Dow Jones and Experian – is a larger market than both marketing and industry information. However, industry information sales are expected to grow at a slightly faster clip (CAGR of 5.1%) than financial information sales (CAGR of 4.8%).
That leaves marketing information, which is both the smallest category of business information and the slowest-growing.
PwC forecasts B2B marketing information revenues to increase by 2.4% annually from 2017 through 2022, in so doing growing from $15.3 billion this year to $16.7 billion at the end of the forecast period.
There are a few evolutions in marketing that PwC says will drive growth in the marketing business information sector. Those include:
- The increasing prevalence of big data, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence, which companies will pay for insights to better understand;
- Efforts to analyze social media, particularly with respect to “the depth and breadth of posts and comments;” and
- The advent of voice assistants and voice search, which will drive interest in market research concerning how companies think about reaching customers.
So while marketing information revenues may not grow as quickly as other categories, the underlying drivers for growth appear to certainly be present.
B2B Trade Show Outlook Unchanged
The second-largest segment of the overall B2B media market is the trade show market. PwC estimates that the trade show market will be an almost $15 billion market this year, representing a 4.3% increase from last year’s $14.3 billion.
This year’s outlook shows little change from last year’s forecast. Overall, the B2B trade show market is expected to grow by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.1% from 2017 through 2022, a CAGR unchanged from last year’s 5-year outlook.
