The Global Marketing Index (GMI) is a monthly indicator of the state of the global marketing industry – it tracks current conditions among marketers and their expectations in three areas: marketing budgets, trading conditions and staffing levels.

The headline GMI for December was 55.0, which was down on the January figure of 57.7 but still within positive territory – an index of 50.0 indicates no change.

Other regions failed to maintain their strength throughout the year: Asia Pacific dipped from 58.5 to 54.2 over the year, while the Americas fell from 57.3 to 51.7.

“The headline GMI reading for December indicates growth in business activity continuing,” said Ed Jones, chief executive at World Economics. “Marketing budgets are still expanding across the world apart from the Americas where spending has fallen for the past four months.”

Full findings can be found here.