A week after its acquisition of Australian out-of-home advertiser APN Outdoor, global outdoor giant JCDecaux has posted a healthy 6.2% jump in third quarter revenue to €867.7 million ($A1.3 billion), with its existing Australian street furniture business recording strong gains.
Third quarter 2018 adjusted organic revenue was up 7.3%, described by chairman Jean-Charles Decaux as “our second best quarterly revenue performance since 2011, and reflects both the strong performance of our transport advertising business in China, as well the successful on-going digitisation of our prime OOH media assets across all business divisions.”
The company’s street furniture division recorded a 2.3% increase in organic revenue. Asia-Pacific was up strongly with a double-digit growth, mainly driven by our new contracts in Australia, JCDecaux said in a statement released in Paris.
Transport advertising increased 15.5%, with Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America delivering a strong double-digit growth. Billboards revenue was slightly down (-0.5% on an organic basis), affected by the "on-going footprint reduction in our UK traditional portfolio, while our UK digital billboard business (DOOH) remained strong.”
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| 'Strong performance':Jean-Charles Decaux |
Decaux said his company’s recent acquisition of APN Outdoor would allow it to take a significant share of the booming Australian outdoor market.
“The closing of the APN Outdoor acquisition on October 31st, 2018 is paving the way for JCDecaux to grow its OOH market share close to 40% in Australia, which is the world’s 7th largest media market with a significant exposure to DOOH (c.50% of outdoor advertising revenue),” he said.
“In a media landscape increasingly fragmented, out-of-home advertising reinforces its attractiveness. With our accelerating exposure to faster-growth markets, our growing premium digital portfolio combined with a new data-led audience targeting platform, our ability to win new contracts and the high quality of our teams across the world, we believe we are well positioned to outperform the advertising market and increase our leadership position in the outdoor advertising industry through profitable market share gains.”
“The strength of our balance sheet is a key competitive advantage that will allow us to pursue further external growth opportunities as they arise and to continue to invest significantly in digital.”
JCDecaux – which describes itself as ‘the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide’ - announced last week that three APN Outdoor executives had been made redundant following the $1.2 billion takeover of the Australian outdoor company. APN CEO James Warburton has announced he will also be leaving following the completion of the deal.
