Samsung Ads: CTV takes 30% of India's large-screen media budgets
Nishit Kanchan, General Manager and Head of Revenue (India) at Samsung Ads, said connected TV has moved past its early experimental phase and now represents around 30% of large-screen media budgets in India. Samsung's CTV advertiser base rose from about 300 clients last year to nearly 450 in the first six months of this year, and Kanchan expects that figure to reach around 600 by December. He said CTV allocation among traditional advertisers has climbed from below 10% of total budgets three to four years ago to 30% to 35% today, while some new-age brands now direct their entire campaign budgets to the format. "CTV is no longer an experimental line item. It has become a constant when it comes to media plans," Kanchan said.
Campaign plans that treated CTV as a discretionary add-on now need dedicated budget lines and measurement plans of their own, especially as more than 20 platforms claim CTV inventory without consistent transparency on where ads actually run. Samsung keeps its own inventory off third-party platforms and splits roughly half of its CTV volume between programmatic and direct deals, using DSPs including The Trade Desk, DV360 and Xandr, though attribution remains fragmented across OEMs, publishers and DSPs. Kanchan places CTV in the top and mid funnel, where advertisers shape creative and audience reach; he cites a Nielsen and Kantar study in which almost 90% of CTV viewers said they would watch ads that felt relevant and targeted. Buyers planning festive-season campaigns, when Samsung expects brands to raise spend by 25% to 30%, will need to weigh growing reach against still-developing measurement standards.