Insights
Ahmedabad’s OOH market faces a supply crunch amid rising demand
Raumil Khatri, MD, Gujarat Art Corner, sees event-led advertising growth on the horizon, but warns that proposed regulatory changes could shrink available inventory even as campaign demand increases.
Gujarat Art Corner operates more than 1,200 sites across Gujarat, with around 250 in Ahmedabad. With national advertisers accounting for nearly 90% of its business, Raumil Khatri, MD, Gujarat Art Corner, sees Ahmedabad’s upcoming sporting events as a potential catalyst for OOH spending, alongside an expected increase in government advertising.
Raumil estimates Gujarat’s outdoor advertising market at ₹500–600 crore, with Ahmedabad alone exceeding ₹100 crore and potentially reaching around ₹150 crore as event-related activity picks up. However, the anticipated growth comes alongside proposed outdoor regulations that could reduce the number of permissible sites at junctions and introduce greater standardisation of hoarding sizes.
For media owners, the concern is whether a market preparing for higher advertising demand will have sufficient inventory to accommodate it. Raumil argues that restrictions on existing sites could affect campaign planning and geographic coverage, particularly for national advertisers that depend on scale. He also notes that Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar have distinct market dynamics, with the latter more heavily driven by local real estate advertising.
While the event-led opportunity remains promising, its actual impact is yet to materialise. The market’s next phase will depend on how authorities balance the need to control outdoor clutter with the availability of advertising inventory needed to meet rising demand.