Global shipments of digital signage displays will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.7 per cent in the next five years to reach 17.2 million units by 2019, a report said.

Global shipments of connected digital signage displays grew by 21.7 per cent to 7.3 million units in 2014, added the report by Berg Insight, a dedicated M2M/IoT market research firm based in Sweden.

Market growth is driven by greater demand for digital signage solutions in all market verticals, technological advancements and a continued decline in prices. Shipments to the EU28+2 countries totalled 1.8 million units, whereas shipments to North America reached 2.1 million units. The Rest of World region accounted for the remaining 3.4 million units shipped in the year.

As a result, the number of connected digital signage displays in active use worldwide will grow from 25.4 million in 2014 at a CAGR of 20.2 per cent to 63.8 million in 2019, the report said.

A new trend in the digital signage market is the expansion in both the high-end segment and the entry-level segment, said Lars Kurkinen, senior analyst at Berg Insight.

“Growth in the high end of the market is driven by customers’ needs for next-generation signage solutions, which often involve integrations with various IT systems to enable the presentation of dynamic real-time information and targeted delivery of engaging content,” he said.

Kurkinen added that promising opportunities are emerging for software vendors that develop middleware to enable more connected and integrated digital signage experiences. The growing opportunity for entry-level digital signage systems is on the other hand fuelled primarily by the availability of new products at lower price points.

“The emergence of new low-cost media players, declining prices for flat-panel displays and popularization of SaaS-based software solutions has made it easier and less costly than ever before to take a digital signage system into use,” said Kurkinen.

The price for entry-level systems has declined to just a few hundred dollars, which is creating new opportunities in many application areas, he concluded. – TradeArabia News Service