Marketing budgets improved in Asia Pacific in March mirroring gains around the globe, Warc’s Global Marketing Index (GMI) found.

The sub-index monitoring budgets sat at 51.2 for APAC, on a scale where scores over 50 Marketers indicate budgets are on the up. Globally the figure stood at 52.4, driven by strong performance in the Americas, which sat at 55.4, while Europe broke through into positive territory for the first time in 11 months to reach 50.4.

The study, which draws on data covering marketing budgets, trading conditions and staffing levels from a panel of 1,225 marketing executives, showed a strong performance for the month across all measures. The headline GMI measure, which incorporates all three measures, reached 56.9 points globally, up 0.7 point in a month, and 56.2 in APAC — a slight drop.

“The latest GMI data are encouraging for marketers worldwide,” says Suzy Young, data and journals director at Warc. “Confidence appears to be returning in Europe, which is reassuring in the light of fresh concerns regarding economic stability in the eurozone.”

This strong performance of the global measure can largely be attributed to a solid improvement of 1.9 points in Europe’s headline index in March, which rose to 55.0 for the month, Warc reports. The Americas scored even higher on 59.0.

The outlook index for trading conditions sat at 59.5 in Asia Pacific, 62.3 in the Americas and 57.9 in Europe.

Spend on mobile and out of home grew again, up 2.7 points and 2.3 points month on month respectively.