Outdoor media sector leader oOh!media has reported a slow start to 2024 in a short market.
In a trading update, the company says overall revenue in the March quarter grew 1%, within expectations, with the first quarter usually the smallest revenue lift of the year.
oOh!’s performance across classic inventory in retail and street furniture fell 33%, with the rest of the business growing at 7%. The company is focused on digitising these two formats.
April media revenue performance showed modest growth and visibility on the rest of the June quarter is short.
"We continue to expect that revenue growth in the second half 2024 will improve fuelled by the roll out of Woollahra and Sydney Metro assets and the ongoing digitisation of assets across our network," CEO Cathy O'Connor told the company's AGM.
oOh!media lifted revenue 7% to $633.9 million in the year to December, buoyed by a vigorous outdoor media market in Australia. Profit was up almost 10% to $34.6 million.
Outdoor media grabbed a record 14.5% share of agency media spend in 2023 with growth continuing in the March quarter this year.
This compares to a broader decline in 2023 for total advertising agency spend of 3%, with television down 14% and radio 6%.
In the first quarter of 2024, OOH share of agency media of spend hit 15.3%.
O'Connor told shareholders out-of-home is expected to continue taking revenue share from other media sectors, particularly from television and radio.
The industry expects mid to high single digit revenue growth in 2024. Major advertising agencies are also expecting similar growth for OOH in 2024.
"As the leading OOH company across ANZ, our ambition is to leverage our unrivalled scale, to lead OOH to a digital first future," she said.
"Our core focus remains on building our network of world class digital assets, and in turn bringing new and compelling mass reach opportunities for advertisers – while also delivering on the ease of trade.
"And beyond our core business, we are focused on enhancing our ability to leverage our existing assets and expertise into a new and adjacent growth markets such as our reooh (for retailers) offering."
A chart from the AGM presentation:
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