The world’s largest outdoor media company saw revenue for the year increase by 18.7%, buoyed by digital spend
In a sign that the out-of-home market is returning to strength following major disruption caused by Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, JCDecaux, the world’s largest outdoor advertising media company, has reported a revenue increase of 18.7% to reach $3.06 billion for 2021.
The Paris headquartered company, which owns 964,760 advertising panels around the world across 3,670 cities, explained in its end-of-year results that over the last 12 months, there had been a drive toward digital investment. As such, despite restrictions being introduced to protect against the new omicron strain of Covid-19, it had recorded a stronger fourth quarter than expected.
Revenue for the last three months of 2021 saw year-on-year growth of 37.5% to reach $1.6 billion. Digital out-of-home revenue grew by a third (33.2%) for the full year—and by 73.78% during the fourth quarter alone. This meant it accounted for over a quarter (26.9%) of group revenue for the year.
“We continued to accelerate our digital transformation and maintained our focus on the rollout of digital screens and on the development of our automated data-driven planning and trading solutions. Programmatic advertising gained good momentum via the VIOOH platform, which is now trading in 15 countries, connected to multiple DSPs (demand side platforms),” explained Jean-François Decaux, chair of the executive board and co-ceo of JCDecaux, in a statement.
“As the most digitized global OOH company with our new data-led audience targeting and programmatic solutions, our well-diversified portfolio, our ability to win new contracts, the strength of our balance sheet and the high quality of our teams across the world, we believe we are well-positioned to benefit from the rebound. We are more than ever confident in the power of our media—in an advertising landscape increasingly fragmented and more and more digital—and in the role it will play to support the economic recovery as well as to drive positive changes,” he added.
And although impacted by Q4 restrictions the company’s street furniture offer reported organic growth for 2021 of 26.3% to $1.6 billion, while billboards increased on an organic basis by 16.6% and transport by 8.5% for the year.
Geographically, Europe saw the largest increase in revenue, growing organically by 18.4% to $918.4 million, while North America rose by 4.8% to over $182 million and Asia Pacific saw growth of 14.3% to $775.17 million.
All geographies grew strongly in Q4 2021,” added Decaux, highlighting that European revenues during Q4 were “very close” to pre-pandemic levels.
According to Dentsu’s bi-annual Global Spend Forecast, out of home will continue to bounce back, with year-over-year growth predicted of 12.8%.
By Stephen Lepitak
