With Japan’s GDP contracting with 0.4% in Q4, the country officially ends the year in a recession with a second negative quarter in a row.
As the International Monetary Fund predicted in October, Germany is likely to come up as the third largest economy, pushing Japan back to number 4.
The US is the most densely populated market in terms of cold outreach and TAM citation. Being the world’s largest economy, startups either work locally or directly shoot for the United States.
Magna reported $338 billion in US-attributed ad spend in 2023 out of $853 global revenue (40%). Statista predicts a growing trend of 42% of all ad spend in the US by 2026.
(For comparison, China’s ad spend was reported at $152 billion – less than half of the US).
If you want to diversify outside of the red ocean, here’s the latest breakdown of the 20 largest economies by GDP (using IMF’s forecasts based on preliminary Q4 numbers);
1. United States
2. China
3. Germany
4. Japan
5. India
6. United Kingdom
7. France
8. Italy
9. Brazil
10. Canada
11. Russia
12. Mexico
13. South Korea
14. Australia
15. Spain
16. Indonesia
17. Turkey
18. Netherlands
19. Saudi Arabia
20. Switzerland
While not every product and service is applicable to each local market, consider the cost arbitrage between translation and local staffing with a 90% drop in competitive pitches on the global market.