Most of the growth in the global entertainment and media industries will occur outside the United States over the next five years, with emerging markets in the lead, according to a study released on Wednesday by the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Pricewaterhouse said the $1.6 trillion in revenue generated last year on advertising, subscriptions and other user fees, in businesses ranging from newspapers to video games, would grow to $2.2 trillion in 2012.

The fastest growth is expected in Latin America, with spending set to jump at a 10.6% annual rate over the next five years, Pricewaterhouse said. The Asia-Pacific region, at 8.8%, and the Europe,Middle East and Africa region, at 6.8%, are also expected to show strong gains, the firm said.

The laggard, meanwhile, will be the United States, which is expected to post annual gains of only 4.8%.

“It shows the strength of the international market, and particularly the emerging markets, and how they are driving global growth,” said Phil Stokes, head of the British entertainment and media practice at Pricewaterhouse in London.

The United States will also be overtaken next year by Europe, the Middle East and Africa as the largest regional media market, with $649 billion in spending, compared with $647 billion for the United States.

The Pricewaterhouse predictions help explain why US media conglomerates like Time Warner, NBC Universal and Walt Disney, which used to rely largely on the US market, have been increasing their international presence.

But the study may be disquieting for executives of companies that have been slower to diversify geographically.

The forecasters’ bullishness about emerging markets is explained by faster growth in economic output there, along with the widespread adoption of new technologies like advanced cellphones in some Asian markets.

Stokes said growth in the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — would also be fuelled by consumers’ spending less on necessities and more on entertainment and media as incomes grew.

In India, for instance, only 1.9% of consumer spending last year went toward entertainment and media products and services, compared with 6.2% in the United States.

“What you’ve got is more people with more money, and also more potential to increase their spending” than in the United States, he said.

Source : DNA