Digital Signage Market: Retailing With Entertainment
The digital signage market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.67% over the forecast period to reach a market size of US$11.372 billion in 2026 from US$5.250 billion in 2019. Digital signage, often known as electronic signage, is a sub-segment of signage. Signage is a design, or a collection of signs and symbols, that are used for marketing. Digital signs display material such as digital pictures, video, streaming media, and information using technologies like LCD, LED, and Projection. They are used to offer wayfinding, exhibits, marketing, and outdoor advertising in public areas, transit systems, museums, stadiums, retail stores, hotels, restaurants, and corporate structures, among other places. They are used as a network of centrally managed and individually addressable electronic displays for presenting text, animated, or video messages to targeted audiences for advertising, information, entertainment, and commerce.
Technology is progressively being used to provide up-to-date information to the public in a timely and accessible manner, to save paperwork, to make advertising and marketing content more appealing through animations, and to improve user experience. Many digital signage manufacturers provide customization features for their products, which makes them more appealing to end customers. Digital signage relies largely on hardware components to produce high-quality content. These displays have mostly replaced traditional small and micro-display screens with large wall-mounted LED and LCD displays used in a number of industries. Sony Corporation introduced premium direct view LED professional displays, modular Crystal LED C-Series, and B-Series for applications such as showrooms, lobbies, and manufacturing plants in January 2021. They are designed for retailers looking to engage with their customers/audiences with a broader viewing angle in order to maximise the impact of marketing messaging. The global digital signage industry is anticipated to be driven by factors such as lower display prices and enhanced consumer experience.
The digitised display technology provides information in a digital version that incorporates motion and visuals to advertise a business more successfully than traditional methods. Furthermore, cutting-edge software solutions, such as Intuiface, have created products that enable even non-technical teams to use contemporary technologies with minimum work or experience. The incorporation of biometric technology with current digital signs has resulted in the development of products such as track heat pathways and gaze tracking. Gaze tracking technology assists firms in finding areas where a large number of customers are concentrated thus allowing them to track consumer behaviour for successful marketing. As a result, the increasing application of the aforementioned technology is projected to boost product demand in the approaching years.
The Demand for Displays in Commercial Advertising Will Aid the Market Growth
According to a study by the Cisco IBSG, over 40% of shoppers claim that digital displays, such as video walls, can influence their buying habits. Retailers can utilise digital signage to project images and videos to promote their products and grab consumer’s interest, as well as organise displays and mix material to create an aesthetic and dynamic ambience. Due to the increase of digitalization, customers are more reliant on the internet to obtain information, receive bargains, discover new ideas, and get inspired before making a purchase. Panasonic Corporation, Tokyo Electric Power Company, and Tepco Town Planning Co Ltd teamed together in January 2020 to modify sideways transformers into signs for advertising, tourism, disaster prevention, and regional information. Retailers can improve their brand recognition and sales by employing digital signage to offer relevant information to the audience at the point of purchase. Furthermore, traditional businesses are developing into smart stores in order to better retain their client base and attract new customers through the use of digital and smart signage. This is also likely to boost the market.
The market for public signage is being driven by public transportation, malls, and new commercial buildings, owing to growing urbanisation in emerging nations. Furthermore, digital signage systems are discovering new potential applications in travel information, tourism, and education. The hospitality sector began to recognise the value of digital communication in ensuring customer satisfaction and reinforcing brand differentiators. Digital signage for the hospitality sector offers an integrated and dynamic system that connects the hotel's operations and marketing components to create an efficient system that benefits both guests and hotel personnel. Epson Europe BV increased their laser projector line-up with six new projectors in October 2020 to create more dramatic signage and experiential immersive displays for various commercial applications such as retail, hotels, museums, and visitor attractions. Several businesses in these industries have already begun to use digital signage to attract customers and improve their experience.
The Self-Serving and Cost-Effective Nature
Businesses can save money on printing, distribution, and waste materials that will be discarded after the promotion are over by lowering the cost of traditional campaigns using digital advertising. Furthermore, The integration of self-service features to digital signage is expected to boost industrial development. Self-service digital signage is becoming increasingly popular in retail, hotel, and health centres since they reduce customer wait times. Self-service kiosks allow potential customers to locate information on their own and navigate to what is most important to them.
The Market Growth May Be Hampered by a Lack of Superior Quality Digital Signage Products for Extreme Weather Conditions
Digital signage is utilised both indoors and outdoors. Outdoor they are used as kiosks, billboards, and signboards. Extreme weather conditions, such as rain, snow, dirt, and high temperatures, can have an affect on digital signage and could compromise their functionality in the future. Thermal management difficulties can arise when digital signage is exposed to direct sunlight over extended periods of time. This can shorten the life of screens and potentially damage their performance. Therefore, choosing cooling filters and thermal management software to deal with digital signage heat accumulation is critical. As a result, an absence of signage products that can operate properly even in extreme weather conditions may have a negative influence on its broad adoption, resulting in lower market demand.
Impact of COVID-19 on the Digital Signage Market
The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative influence on the growth of the digital signage market. The negative impact on the display market, with manufacturing activities, temporarily halted throughout key manufacturing centres, resulting in a butterfly effect, thus significantly slowing down the output. COVID-19 had an influence not only on the operations of the numerous digital signage producers but also on the businesses of their suppliers and distributors. Failure of export shipments and sluggish domestic demand for digital signage and display goods compared to pre-COVID-19 levels are also likely to have a negative influence and somewhat stagnant demand for digital signage in the short term.
