Russ Curry, Ministry of New Media
JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC), the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, announced this week its revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2020.
Adjusted revenue for the first quarter 2020 decreased by -13.9% to €723.6 million compared to €840.0 million in the first quarter of 2019.
Excluding the negative impact from foreign exchange variations and the positive impact from changes in perimeter, adjusted revenue decreased by -13.9%.
Adjusted advertising revenue, excluding revenue related to sale, rental and maintenance of street furniture and advertising displays, decreased by -14.6% on an organic basis in the first quarter of 2020.
| Q1 adjusted revenue | 2020 (€m) | 2019 (€m) | Reported growth | Organic growth(a) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Street Furniture | 325.5 | 344.3 | -5.5% | -5.0% |
| Transport | 281.7 | 368.0 | -23.4% | -23.8% |
| Billboard | 116.3 | 127.7 | -9.0% | -9.5% |
| Total | 723.6 | 840.0 | -13.9% | -13.9% |
a. Excluding acquisitions/divestitures and the impact of foreign exchange
Jean-François Decaux, Chairman of the Executive Board and Co-CEO of JCDecaux, said “After a good start in most markets with growth outside of China in January and February, our business started to be significantly affected by total and partial lockdowns due to Covid-19 in March forcing us to withdraw our Q1 revenue guidance. Our Q1 2020 revenue reached €723.6m down ‑13.9% organically versus last year despite digital revenue growing at +1.1% on an organic basis. Our digital revenue which now represent 27.6% of Group revenue versus 23.5% for the same period last year grew at +0.8% with digital Street Furniture and digital Billboard growing +17.5% and +2.8%, respectively, while digital Transport declined -10.1%.
Street Furniture’s organic revenue decline of -5.0% was entirely driven by lockdowns introduced late February in Italy and starting mid-March in many other countries such as France, Spain, UK, Australia… as well as US States / cities such as California, NYC… Billboard’s revenue declined -9.5% organically for the same reasons. Transport was the most impacted segment with a -23.8% organic revenue decline mainly due to a significant passengers traffic decrease in both airport and transit systems and to a material drop in advertising sales in Asia-Pacific with China being the first country to be affected by this pandemic.
We now expect the negative impact of Covid-19 on our business to significantly increase in the short term but it is not possible to quantify its depth or duration of the impact. As a result, we are not able to provide any guidance for Q2 2020 as well as for Q3 and Q4. Having said that, the lockdown measures are reminding billions of people around the world that we all need to be Out‑of‑Home in order to live a normal life with friends and families. For this reason, we expect OOH / DOOH media to benefit from the reopening of countries and cities with Street Furniture and Billboard advertising rebounding faster than Transport which will be affected by social distancing while airport advertising will take longer to recover to pre-Covid-19 level. For example, in France, when the government announced lifting progressively the lockdown restrictions starting on May 11th, we started to book both national and local Street Furniture and Billboard advertising campaigns. In China with metro passenger traffic in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou at more than 60% pre-Covid-19 level and domestic airport travel resuming, our advertising sales are improving.
Our response to this unprecedented downturn has focused on the health and safety of our employees and I would like to thank them for their exemplary behaviour across the world during this difficult time, the services to our partners (advertisers, advertising / media agencies, public authorities, private landlords, … all around the world) including, but not limited to, free access to our bike-sharing networks for healthcare workers and self‑service hydroalcoholic solution distributors installations in our street furniture assets, the reduction of our cost base, a reduced capex program as well as the enhancement of our liquidity and balance sheet. We have initiated discussions on rent relief with all airports, cities and transport authorities around the world and we welcome the recent decision, among others, from the Houston City Council to waive minimum annual guarantees for Airport concessionaires until December 2021. We also have immediately put in place all the necessary steps to enable all our teams to work safely from home with more than 80% of our people (excluding field operation employees) working remotely currently. The Executive Board members as well as the Supervisory Board decided to cut their 2020 compensations by 25% and 20%, respectively. We have also introduced decreases in employee hours, voluntary reduction and temporary unemployment benefitting from governmental measures, wherever available, with a reduction of working hours of around 50% at Group level.
Further to our decision to withdraw the 2019 dividend proposal, we have taken the opportunity to strengthen our liquidity and financial flexibility. We have successfully placed notes for a principal amount of 1 billion euros at 4.5 years and 8 years, with coupons of 2.000% and 2.625% respectively.
In a media landscape increasingly fragmented, Out-of-Home advertising reinforces its attractiveness. With our well diversified geographic country and advertisers portfolio, 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 after the crisis. 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 in digital.”
STREET FURNITURE
First quarter adjusted revenue decreased by -5.5% to €325.5 million (-5.0% on an organic basis). Europe (including France and UK) was down, with France down double-digit impacted by the total lockdown from mid-March, despite a positive performance as of end of February at +1.1%. Asia‑Pacific was down mid-single digit. North America was up high-single digit. The Rest of the World was down double‑digit. Before the introduction of lockdowns in many countries mostly from early March, Street Furniture was up +3.9% as of end of February.
First quarter adjusted advertising revenue, excluding revenue related to sale, rental and maintenance of street furniture was down -5.9% on an organic basis compared to the first quarter of 2019.
TRANSPORT
First quarter adjusted revenue decreased by -23.4% to €281.7 million (-23.8% on an organic basis), reflecting a significant decline globally in both airport passenger traffic as well as public transport commuting due to the Covid‑19 outbreak. Europe (including France and UK) posted double-digit decline, with a negative impact from the Covid‑19 outbreak and the non‑renewal of the AENA Spanish national airport loss-making contract. Asia-Pacific was down significantly, fully impacted by the Covid-19 outbreak throughout the quarter. North America was up. The Rest of the World was slightly down.
BILLBOARD
First quarter adjusted revenue decreased by -9.0% to €116.3 million (-9.5% on an organic basis). Europe (including France and UK), the Rest of the World and Asia-Pacific were down. North America was up double-digit.
Following the adoption of IFRS 11 from January 1, 2014, the operating data presented above is adjusted to include their prorata share in companies under joint control. Please refer to the paragraph “Adjusted data” on page three of this release for the definition of adjusted data and reconciliation with IFRS.
The values shown in the tables are generally expressed in millions of euros. The sum of the rounded amounts or variations calculations may differ, albeit to an insignificant extent, from the reported values.
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