iSuppli says: Digital billboards set to take 15% share by 2010

It looks as if the digital billboard market is finally starting to come together. Just a few days ago Clear Channel Outdoor announced that they had deployed their sixth market of electronic road-side billboards, and now market research firm iSuppli suggests that it's only the beginning:

By 2010, 75,000 billboards, or 15% of total billboards in the U.S., will be digital displays, up from a mere 500 digital billboards in 2006, according to iSuppli. Digital signage is another vehicle for advertisers to reach out to their customers in the $500 billion global advertising market.

iSuppli provides a quick back-of-the-envelope model on how big this market is going to be. Based on its 2010 estimate, the 75,000 potential digital billboards will be using an average of 325,000 LEDs; that would require 40,625 LED drivers for each of the 75,000 digital billboards. That would mean a cost of $16,250 per digital billboard or $1.22 billion for the 75,000 digital billboards in 2010, a big growth opportunity for both semiconductor suppliers and manufacturers of display technology.

iSuppli estimates that on average it only takes 6 to 10 months for the owner of a large digital sign to see an ROI.

Only 6-10 months? That kind of ROI is amazing, though given the current capital costs involved with setting up a network, electronic billboards still aren't for the faint of heart.

Tags: electronic billboards, out-of-home advertising, digital billboards