New industry paper estimates installed base to triple in five years

April 30, 2008 by Dave Haynes

Research house NSR released new numbers yesterday about the size and state of this industry, with estimates on where we are and where this is all going.

According to NSR the industry, which has the majority of deployments and revenues globally from retail, hospitality, healthcare and transportation verticals, is poised to grow from an estimated installed base of about 210,000 sites in 2007 to more than 850,000 sites during the period from 2008 to 2013. Though North America and Europe remain leaders in deployments, countries such as China, Australia and India in the Asia Pacific are witnessing tremendous growth and are estimated to reach the scale of their early-adoptive counterparts over a five-year period.

Revenues from advertising, though hard to come by initially, have picked up considerably with advertisers recognizing the impact of the medium on consumers, especially in retail locations such as malls and supermarkets. Here, once again, the global industry is expected to grow at a healthy rate of about 18% from its current estimated figure of nearly $1 billion annually in advertising revenue.

The numbers are based on interviews with some 200 companies and for a measly $3,000 a copy is yours. I just plugged this for NSR for nothing so I am sure my complimentary copy is being slid into a FedEx envelope and heading my way even as we speak. Right guys?

In looking around I see various people such as Adrian are begging to differ with some of the estimates. Every time I see revenue estimates they look very different, owing a lot I expect to included geographies and whether digital screens are broken out or lumped in as alternative media. As for the count, that’s really hard to nail down globally, as the screen count is huge, but the numbers of screens at each site varies.

China’s Focus Media, has for instance, more than 110,000 screens, but at how many sites? PRN has 250,000 screens, but that’s at 6,500 stores and the count includes all those crappy old TVs hanging from Wal-Mart ceilings, and, I suspect, TV walls in the electronics departments.

Numbers of screens is an impressive thing, I suppose, but I suspect advertisers are much more interested in sites when they look at market penetration.

In the interests on the industry’s integrity, this needs to get set straight. I’m willing to go personally count all of the screens in the Caribbean and South Pacific and will be available to start in mid-November, or whenever winter decides to return to the Great White North.

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