China's digital marketing industry has managed to maintain growth despite the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

The industry is dominated by online marketing, which is seeing exploding demand in sectors including games, short videos and online education, making the industry less affected by the outbreak.  

As a result of the closure of public places of entertainment during this Chinese New Year, games, short videos and other online products have become the first choice of entertainment for Chinese, said a report by Securities Times.

Leading marketing firm BlueFocus, which makes 90 percent of its total revenue from digital marketing, estimated that the company will see a big year-on-year increase in digital advertising in January, given current situation. 

Another digital marketing firm Leo Group said that two of its subsidiaries increased advertising on short-video platform Douyin during the New Year period, and both raised by about 300 percent year on year.

In the field of education, universities, schools and kindergartens across the country have postponed the start of the spring semester. Against this backdrop, studying at home has become an engine driving the growth of online education. Correspondingly, the digital advertising of online education has increased significantly, which also brings benefits to advertisers, the report added.

In contrast, traditional advertising, particularly in retail, catering, film and television segments, has decreased, undermining the development of relevant advertising companies.

To offset the impact of decline in offline business, some advertising firms have increased their online marketing, said the report.

Most advertisers have completed their marketing tasks for the festival in advance. Therefore, the revenue decrease during the period may be limited, according to the report.

The overall advertising market in China remains promising this year, as many brands may invest more in publicity after the epidemic in efforts to make up for the losses encountered in the first half of the year, said Yang Yexin, president of Shanghai Tianyukong Advertising Co., Ltd.

(With input from Xinhua)