In this weekly segment, ExchangeWire sum up key industry updates on ad tech from around the Asia-Pacific region – and in this edition: Adform inks partnership with India in sight; AdAsia launches video network & production services; GroupM revises China growth forecast downwards; New Facebook Page sections available for SEA firms; and OMD get new Telstra head.

Adform inks partnership with India in sight

The ad tech vendor has signed an agreement with Zirca Digital Solutions to make its products and services available in the Indian market.

As Adform's exclusive local partner, Zirca will oversee sales outreach, contracting, invoicing and collection, campaign management, and creative services.

India offered great market potential, despite its currently small digital advertising, as the world's second-largest online population and where mobile internet adoption was growing. It also had a strong culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, which would help drive the local digital advertising ecosystem, Adform said.

Its senior vice president of corporate development, Christian Duus, said: "The Indian economy has a significant upside, and the potential to become one of the biggest and most interesting online advertising markets in the world.

"This partnership is strategic to our global expansion plans, in that we are eager to build a business foundation and the Adform brand before the market takes off", Duus said, adding that Zirca had local market knowledge.

AdAsia launches video network & production services

Singapore-based AdAsia Holdings have introduced a new video network that offers both buy-side and supply-side functionalities.

Advertisers and agencies would be able to access and purchase video inventory for desktop, mobile web and app, and cross-screen, and push both new and traditional video ad forms including outstream, instream, and rich-media video ads.

Through the AdAsia Video Network, publishers would be able to offer their inventory for real-time and direct video ad space purchases. They also could access a portal to manage their ad inventory, as well as monitor and analyse ongoing performance through generated reports and SDKs.

In addition to the video network, AdAsia Video Production aimed to offer marketers video and animation production services, including drone 360-degree videography, as well as traditional production formats.

AdAsia CEO and co-founder Kosuke Sogo said: "True to our goal of becoming the number one advertising company in Asia, we are developing an integrated platform that solves the needs of a modern marketer. The new solutions have added an additional dimension – video – to the AdAsia Digital Platform."

GroupM revises China growth forecast downwards

The WPP agency has revised its 2016 growth forecast for China down from 9.1% to 6.6%, attributing the downward slide to sluggish consumer demand amid slowing fixed investment and profits.

Initial estimates also put advertising spend for the country at 7% higher next year, it said, adding that these growth figures would keep China among the top growing large major markets, although it would no longer clock double-digital growth rates. It further noted that growth would be strongly linked to the nation's expanding urbanisation and consumer confidence.

GroupM also slashed their global ad spend forecast from 4.5% to 4%, due to slowing growth in China and Brazil, with 2017 ad volume expected to be USD$552bn (£417.67bn). Slower growth in the Chinese market would pave the way for the US to be once again the leading contributor of global growth this year, having ceded the position to China since 2007.

India would remain the fastest-growing larger economy, at an expected run-rate of 14% to 15% in 2016 and 2017, respectively, and would become the 10th-largest ad market in 2018, with expenditure exceeding USD$10bn (£7.57bn).

New Facebook Page sections available for SEA firms

The social media platform has unveiled two new Page sections, touted to offer a better way for businesses and specialists to peddle their services.

Available to all Pages in the Southeast Asian region, a new shop section would provide a platform on which companies could display products they were selling on their Page, and consumers would be able to discover, browse, and submit offers to purchase products by messaging the companies.

A new services section also would enable specialised service businesses such, as plumbers and spas, to list their offerings on their Page. Facebook said this was aimed at making to easier for people to locate information they were looking for, so they could decide whether to work with that business.

According to Facebook, several Asian markets were among the top 10 countries where Shop section was used on Pages, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

OMD gets new Telstra head

Hamish Strahorn

The agency has appointed Hamish Strahorn as its head of Telstra, pulling the executive from Starcom, where he was business director and led the Suncorp client operations.

Strahorn, who has more than 14 years of industry experience, had previously spent three years at OMD, including with the agency's Telstra team, to which he would now be returning.

OMD Sydney managing director, Aimee Buchanan, said: "We are thrilled to be welcoming Hamish back into the OMD team on our key client, Telstra. He brings a deep understanding of both the leadership qualities and experience we believe are critical to helping Telstra and OMD realise their ambitions."