Unilever leads the market
Beverages, smartphones, and food dominate category spend
Service sectors surge, with personal services and property ads more than doubling
Jakarta - October 14, 2025 - Latest data from Nielsen Ad Intel shows Indonesia's advertising landscape is being reshaped by both familiar FMCG giants and a wave of fast-growing service sectors.
Unilever has maintained its long-standing position as the country's top advertiser for the first half of 2025, followed closely by Wings and Mayora. Tech-driven players, like Goto (Gojek Tokopedia) and Garena(Shopee) have also cemented their spots in the top ten, reflecting Indonesia's increasingly digital consumer economy.
Other major spenders include Nestl , Indofood, Ajinomoto Indonesia, Aqua, and Tempo Scan Pacific, reinforcing the strength of fast-moving consumer goods as the engine of Indonesia's advertising market.
TOP 20 ADVERTISERS
On a category level, beverages took the crown as Indonesia's largest advertising category in H1 2025, followed by laptops & smartphones, then food.
These sectors continue to dominate ad spend across television, digital, and outdoor channels, driven by intense brand competition and high-frequency campaigns. Rounding out the top five categories were toiletries & cosmetics, followed by medicines & pharmaceuticals both of which maintained solid investment levels as health and self-care remain front-of-mind for Indonesian consumers.
TOP 20 CATEGORIES
While big FMCG names continue to dominate overall spend, Nielsen data shows the fastest growth is coming from service-oriented sectors.
Advertising in personal services more than doubled (up 108%) in the first half of 2025, while property services also surged by 101%, signalling renewed consumer confidence and a competitive market for housing, leisure, and lifestyle experiences.
Transport, travel & recreation climbed 39.7%, highlighting Indonesia's travel sector rebound post-pandemic. Meanwhile, apparel & personal accessories (up 21.3%) and smoking & accessories (up 17.1%) also recorded notable gains.
TOP 5 GROWTH CATEGORIES
Nielsen's Managing Director Asia, Adrienne Wong, said: Advertisers are increasingly recognising the value of real-time competitive visibility. In a market as diverse and fast-moving as Indonesia, the difference between leading and lagging often comes down to intelligence. Knowing how much your competitors are spending, and where they're spending, leads to smarter media strategies, sharper negotiations, and stronger ROI. Nielsen Ad Intel provides that edge by giving marketers a complete view of the ad market across platforms.
Nielsen's Indonesia Director, Tejendar Singh, added: Indonesia remains one of Southeast Asia's most dynamic advertising economies, fuelled by a young, digital-savvy population and strong brand competition across both traditional and online media. Nielsen's latest findings highlight a market balancing established FMCG dominance and emerging investment from service-led industries.
About Nielsen Ad Intel Ad Intel provides the most complete source of cross-platform advertising intelligence available today. With intuitive software, review-and-compare ad activity across media, company, category or brand, plus historical data.
Note: Nielsen monitors gross advertising expenditure in major media at published rate card values. While discounts are made available from some media owners, rates are not openly available. Please also note that the category and brand/product groupings figures are grouped at Nielsen's discretion.
About Nielsen Nielsen is a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics. Through our understanding of people and their behaviors across all channels and platforms, we empower our clients with independent and actionable intelligence so they can connect and engage with their global audiences now and into the future. Learn more at www.nielsen.com and connect with us on social media (X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram).
Press Contact Dan Chapman
dan.chapman@nielsen.com
+61 4040884
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Unilever leads the market
