Competition to have the thinnest bezel for commercial displays is not new. Samsung was one of the first in the SNB space with a 46” HD 700 nit 7.3 mm gap product. This product has had the most traction in the market to date. Last year, Sharp entered the SNB panel market with a 60” HD, 700 nit, LED-backlit panel with a 7.1 mm bezel gap.

Historically, there has been a trade-off between resolution and bezel size, with panel makers only making HD (as opposed to FHD) panels with small borders. For many commercial installations, where the displays are viewed at a distance, FHD is needed. However, the promotion of FHD in the consumer space and the general need to show advancements in technology have driven panel makers to attain FHD resolutions in SNB designs.

LGD’s announcement advances this trend and could open this market segment up further, enabling brands and installers to multi-source. The goal of LCD panel makers is to push down the price of multi-LCD panel installations in hopes of replacing rear projection (typically DLP) and/or plasma video walls. A DLP rear-projection solution typically has a 1 mm “mullion” (the term often used in video walls for the seam or gap between displays), and plasma panels typically have a 4.0 mm gap. Orion PDP (now just called Orion) has narrowed this gap to just 2.2 mm for its PDP video walls.

If the competition over gap size continues among LCD panel makers, as well as between LCD, DLP, and plasma makers, a zero seam gap multi-display will be the next progression. Some may argue that the winner will be whoever produces the technology for a zero-bezel display. Such a solution would not only benefit the developer, but it would also help to open new markets for all.

The commercial AV market has historically been dominated by projection technologies for very large venues. Direct-view LED boards have also had a long presence in outdoor venues. However, TFT LCDs are now becoming a key technology for large venues, starting with indoor digital signage, including applications such as quick-service restaurants, flight information displays, digital advertising, and way-finding.

One question that always arises is: how are commercial-grade TFT LCDs different than those used in TVs? To address this, brands and panel makers with a B2B focus have tried to specify how the panels and the finished sets are different from TV displays. A key aspect is reliability: the installer community needs to be convinced that TFT LCD technology can operate 24/7 in commercial settings.

Panel makers have updated their roadmaps to call out Digital Information Displays (DID), Public Displays (PD), or Public Information Display (PID) vs. TV panels so that brands and OEMs can see the differences. At the set level, other terms have arisen to define non-display features, such as cabled remote control (via RS232), thin, uniform bezels, or other industrial design features. Many brands now use the acronym LF or LFD for Large-Format Display. With companies like Samsung making both panels and finished sets (some of which use professional grade panels and some of which do not), it is not uncommon to hear about a new “LED LCD LFD using a DID panel.” This is a mouthful even for an industry full of acronyms, but these differentiators are necessary to communicate performance differences.

Commercial displays have been using narrow bezels, and now are emphasizing “super” or “ultra” narrow bezels, as a way to position TFT LCDs in the video wall market, where very small gaps between displays are required. Rear-projection video wall vendors use the term “mullion” for the gap between display elements, but TFT LCD vendors tend to use “bezel.” But now TVs have narrow bezels, again making it harder to differentiate commercial grade displays.

In response, another specification is receiving more attention in the product lines of panel makers focusing on the commercial space: brightness. Enhancements in backlighting (improved CCFL efficiency, edge-lit LEDs, back-lit LEDs) are allowing for 700 to 1,500 nit brightness to be achieved in 55-60” TFT LCDs, enabling differentiation from consumer grade products.

High brightness is not just a marketing differentiator; it allows TFT LCDs to be effective in out-of-home environments, where installers are not in control of ambient light (think of shopping malls or airports which can be flooded with sunlight). While the consumer market is always open to specifications wars, tradeoffs between set thickness, cost, and brightness limit the adoption of high brightness, so it is likely to be the province of commercial-grade displays.

DisplaySearch is now tracking trends in brightness in our Quarterly FPD Public Display Shipment and Forecast Report

In the display industry, it is hard to escape the hype associated with 3D. While all eyes are focused on the future of bringing 3D TV to every home, 3D infrastructure and content must be developed before 3D in the home becomes a reality.

Hollywood is leading the charge (with sports media not far behind) to increase the amount of 3D content available. With movies like “Avatar” carrying a high profile, consumers are being exposed to 3D every day. But what about those who base their opinions of 3D on movies made in the 1950s and 1980s, or the red/cyan anaglyphic presentations like the 2010 Grammy Awards? How do advertisers promote 3D to users who do not yet have the ability to view the latest implementations of 3D in their homes (think chicken-and-egg)? Here is where the worlds of digital signage-digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is a sub-set-and 3D start to converge.

Over the years, many different types of digital advertising displays with a variety of auto-stereoscopic 3D displays (the kind that does not require special glasses) have been used to grab the attention of passersby. However, the newly published DisplaySearch 3D Display Technology and Market Forecast Report confirms that those 3D public displays have not yet shipped in high volumes due to technology limitations. The “sweet spot” for viewing the 3D effect is limited with auto-stereoscopic displays, and the resolution and the overall quality of auto-stereoscopic 3D effects do not match the movie theatre experience, where stereoscopic 3D using active or passive glasses to generate a stunning 3D experience. But people seeing digital advertisements for those movies at bus shelters, in malls or in other public venues are clearly not going to be wearing 3D glasses, so OOH advertising companies like Clear Channel Outdoor and JC Decaux who want to use 3D must use auto-stereoscopic displays.

So the question is whether showcasing 3D movies (and TV) in an OOH environment with a 3D technology that does not do justice to what consumers would see in 3D theaters or on 3D-enabled TVs really helps to push the technology forward in consumers’ minds.

One example is Clear Channel Outdoor’s ad campaign in the UK to promote the 20th Century Fox movie “Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief” (which is not a 3D movie). The 3D ads are running in at least four high-profile bus shelters in London. The displays come from 3D Exposure, and the description of the LCD panel used in this implementation (a 42″ FHD commercial-grade panel) suggests LG Display as the source. 3D Exposure claims that 3D public displays have “four times the stopping power of standard 2D advertisements, up to 10 times the average dwell time [and an] increased brand recall rate.” No one doubts the stopping power that a 3D image has in a public display environment, but now that the display is intended to promote the very thing that it is demonstrating, there is a new dynamic at play.

Since the technology being used to showcase 3D to the masses (auto-stereoscopic) is different than what they will see in the theatre or at home (stereoscopic), it will be interesting to see if the hype surrounding 3D will help increase the sales of 3D stereoscopic public displays (for digital movie posters and the like), or whether this type of 3D technology try to disassociate itself from the movie theater or home TV 3D video experience and simply remain an eye-catching technology.

Does the future of digital signage hinge on the digital out-of-home advertising market alone? Newcomers to digital signage might look at articles such as the recent one in Advertising Age reporting that the sizable drop in ad revenues in 2009 was the main reason that the digital signage market hasn’t had the explosive growth that many expected. With traditional advertising at the lowest levels in history, no wonder digital out-of-home advertising hasn’t taken the world by storm yet, right?

In actuality, in spite of all the roadblocks in front of it, sales of displays for digital signage show the market holding its own, with growth (yes, growth) actually being seen sequentially (quarterly) as well as annually.

Players in the digital signage industry-ranging from the biggest of IT companies to small to mid-sized software and integration companies-presented their ideas and visions of the market at the DisplaySearch Digital Signage Conference held last week in San Jose. From this conference some key findings were revealed:

• While many equate digital signage with digital advertising, the concept extends way beyond the trend of DOOH (digital out-of-home) advertising, encompassing a wide variety of dynamic digital content.
• Several markets are embracing digital signage for communications other than advertising :
  • Education, prompted by “safe campus initiatives”
  • Corporate communications of key (and rapidly changing initiatives) to all employees in all remote offices or branches
  • Healthcare
  • Quick-service restaurants (for electronic menu board systems)
• Until a few years ago, the market consisted of smaller, vertically-oriented players. Now some of the world’s largest IT companies, including Cisco, HP and Intel have dedicated resources to this market, with subsidized digital-advertising models not even on their radar.
• Panelists from large and small players alike agreed that DOOH will be a key component of digital signage in the future, but key ROI metrics for audience measurement are currently missing. No company will risk the investment required to install a digital signage network without being able to demonstrate ROI to advertisers. The key is to show that DOOH enables advertisers to target messages (and dynamically change them), helping with audience reach, with audience recall, or with any of the other standard, audited advertising medium. It was noted that while the installed base of digital signage is growing, it is hard for advertising agencies to suggest a media plan to their clients, as DOOH installations tend to be independent with no centralized mechanism of control.
• Players in the space are looking for other digital signage opportunities, with the US stimulus package dollars a potential opportunity. As with all government programs, however, these are slow to emerge and there are no specific digital signage projects. With as much as 10% of the stimulus associated with IT, there is the potential for trickle-down, but any impact to digital signage is expected to be slow.

While individual initiatives have often failed, it is too early to count out digital signage, given that it is now backed by the $80 billion display industry and some of the top IT companies.

Having been somewhat bitten by zero-cost mass transit projects like Washington Metro’s “The Metro Channel” (TMC) last year, it seems as if the promotional activities for the major out-of-home advertisers has died down in the US market. Announcements from ClearChannel Outdoor in Norway to JCDecaux‘s initiative in Qatar are making news (with many installations in the UK), but the US market seems to be in limbo at the moment.

With advertising dollars being cut in this great recession and with continued efforts focused on determining ROI and metrics standardization for digital signage, it appears as if some of the world’s largest OOH (out-of-home) advertising firms have scaled back their aggressive efforts in the US.

This comes at a time when the FPD industry seems more willing than ever to invest in manufacturing with larger LCD (Sharp is leading the way to Gen 10) and plasma (see Panasonic‘s efforts in expanding production in this space) plants coming on line. These larger plants can make 4-sheet and 6-sheet digital-equivalent FPD displays more easily and more cost effectively than their predecessors. Thus these companies are eager to help push the OOH digital infrastructure further. With FPD TV adoption now skewing towards smaller displays (due to consumer reaction to the economy) there may be more capacity for larger FPDs (both LCD and plasma) ready for full roll-out in OOH markets.

Titan Worldwide is one company that is taking advantage of new opportunities in the US, especially in mass transit, boasting wins for the AC Transit contract in Oakland as well as the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. The infrastructure build-out for these wins (along with on-going projects in Chicago, New York, New Jersey and Boston) seems slow, with supply-chain indications showing no noticeable up-tick in the sales of flat panels for such opportunities. This makes one wonder when these projects will really start generating revenue for the display guys, as opposed to revenue from ad sales.

CBS Outdoor seems to have scaled back initiatives for installing additional digital signage infrastructure in the US, with its current initiatives focused on maintaining its large inventory (after absorbing CBS Outernet in recent months), or on markets outside of the US.

Are these leading indicators of a slow down in building digital-signage infrastructure in the US? Does this leave the door open to other companies becoming “media companies” and thus trying to control the sales of digital inventory themselves in installations that they subsidize?

TFT LCD makers are now suffering from a deep downturn. According to the latest Quarterly TFT LCD Cost Forecast Reports with Annual and Quarterly Projections, panel prices are approaching cash costs, and some panel makers are already selling products for less than cash cost. Meanwhile, prices continue to fall. DisplaySearch estimates that in Q3’08 global capacity utilization was merely 84.5%, the lowest in 12 quarters. Suppliers based in Taiwan—like AUO, CMO and CPT—have indicated that their capacity utilization will be only 60-70% in Q4’08. In the meantime, depreciation of the Korean Won gives Korean TFT LCD makers a cost advantage in their efforts to take market shares from Taiwanese makers.

As reported in the Q4’08 Quarterly Large-Area TFT LCD Shipment Report, Taiwan’s share of large-area TFT LCD unit shipments fell from 47.5% in Q3’07 to 43.5% in Q3’08, while Korea’s grew from 39.7% to 43.8% in the same period. DisplaySearch expects Taiwan’s share to fall further to 42.7% in Q4’08, when Korea’s will reach 44.5%. TFT LCD makers are suffering, and Taiwanese are suffering the most.

The TFT LCD industry is a survival contest right now. As the CEO of a leading panel maker said “It is a test where everyone’s going underwater, so it is time to see who can hold their breath the longest.”

The low utilization rate has pushed panel makers in Taiwan to consider fab closures to cut down the overhead and facility operation costs. Rumors indicate that two Gen 5, two Gen 3.5, and three Gen 4 fabs in Taiwan will shut down for the next couple of months. I believe this is the first time in the history of LCD manufacturing that array fabs have been completely shut down due to weak demand, certainly on this scale. When the fabs would be restarted, and how long it will take to ramp back up to full capacity after being shut down for 2-4 months, is unclear.

So what’s next? In order to compete with Korean opponents, consolidation among Taiwanese to reach a larger scale would be one possibility, and has been mentioned in every down cycle. But the capacity remains after a merger. And who should acquire whom is a big question. Meanwhile, would fab closures change the over-supply situation? We will provide further analysis in the upcoming Quarterly TFT LCD Supply/Demand and Capital Spending Report.

The world’s biggest retailer Walmart is on the minds of many in the FPD industry as it continues to grow as a major outlet for FPD TVs as well as other consumer electronics products. Equally important is how it goes about merchandising these products. In an announcement (finally) made earlier last week, Walmart announced a refresh to its in-store digital signage network now dubbed Walmart Smart Network. Walmart is often stated by many to be the US’s fifth largest TV network (behind NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX) due to the foot traffic of Walmart with “120-130 million viewers a month” often mentioned. This upgrade to the existing Walmart TV requires new Digital Signage displays, which is great news for the industry.

The roll-out was publicly stated to include 27,000 Public Display/Digital Signage solutions over a two-year period. The integrator is the US’s largest provider of Digital Signage, Thompson’s PRN (Premier Retail Networks http://www.prn.com/) which has recently struck a deal with display provider Planar.

Figure 1    Examples of PRN’s Current Solutions for Walmart: 15”, 42” and 57” LCD Displays

The world’s largest retailer’s a major initiative to roll-out a significant number of Digital Signage displays is excellent news for the Public Display market (as the FPD market continues to look for that “next big market” beyond FPD TVs). However, the details of the roll-out from the supply-chain side may cause many of the top brands and panel vendors to re-evaluate either their pricing or their product strategy.

Indications from Taiwan reveal that Planar’s back-end partners for this roll-out will be Taiwan’s Chi Lin Technology, providing OEM support and integrating LCD panels from CMO. For smaller sizes like end-cap displays, Planar may rely on one of its typical OEM partners for its monitor/public display business, Coretronic, but this will only be for 15” XGA sizes, which are slated to use “typical monitor panels,” some with touch panels.

Of greater interest to the FPD producers within the Digital Signage industry is the fact that the larger size LCD displays—42” and 57” panels—will come from CMO. Since Chi Lin is a CMO subsidiary, then the vertical integration was seemingly selected to help keep costs down. What may come as a shock to many in the FPD industry is that CMO (one of the leading Taiwanese large-area LCD panel producers) does not offer a line of commercial-grade LCD panels, so the 42” and 57” LCD panels used in the solution will be TV-grade panels.
Might a decision like this from Walmart/PRN/Planar cause a shift in Large Format LCD panel roadmaps? Or closer price-parity from LCD producers to their brand and integration partners between commercial-grade panels and TV-grade panels?  Either way, the good news for the industry is that Digital Signage continues to gain momentum, and it can now focus more on supply-chain concerns rather than on true end-market demand, which seems to grow every day.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opened at 8:08 pm on August 8, 2008. This time has special meaning because the number 8 symbolizes “fortune” in China. So much about the ceremony was wonderful: the very large scale of the ceremony, the splendid fireworks show, the spectacular demonstration of Chinese culture, and the amazing coordination of the thousands of actors involved.

Of course, for those of us who are in the display industry, the enormous LED display right in the middle of the Bird’s Nest was the best part! This LED display was an important feature of the opening ceremony. At the beginning of the ceremony, it rolled into the venue, and then slowly opened up like an ancient Chinese painting scroll. The display is 147 meters long and 22 meters wide and acted like a big movie screen through the show, showing Chinese calligraphy, Chinese paintings, Chinese characters and Chinese expeditions.

No doubt that there will be more interest in the LED display industry after this show, which had tens of millions of viewers in the US and billions of viewers worldwide. The LED provider for this scroll and for the lighting in the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube is Cree, a US-based LED company and one of the largest LED companies in the world. Their China Division manager is speaking about this during the DisplaySearch China FPD Conference on September 4-5.

As digital signage efforts continue to grow both locally and worldwide, more and more major out-of-home initiatives are being implemented. In what may be one of the most aggressive examples of expectations set by the digital signage industry, the Washington DC metro system has recently issued a “zero dollar” bid for a wholesale infrastructure swap-out of its printed advertising to digital signage. Officially dubbed The Metro Channel (TMC), the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) has issued an official (and public) RFP for a no-cost contract to support the following components of a digital signage installation for the nation’s second largest transit system:

1. Financing
2. Design / Build
3. Operate, Maintain, Create Content and Sell content

Figure 1 Mockups of Washington DC’s Metro System “The Metro Channel” Digital Signage “zero cost” initiative

The project is guaranteed for 10-30 years and will take over the current contract (currently for printed signage only) from incumbent CBS Outdoor (whose contract ends in June of 2010). WMATA (the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) believes that offerors or teams of offerors can accomplish all three tasks of the project.

Most display manufacturers surveyed by DisplaySearch regarding this effort were aware of it, but approaching it with a skeptical eye, fearing that the primary contractors for such business would eventually lean on them to help subsidize such an implementation. FPD producers simply do not currently have the business model that allows them to think in terms of 10-30 year contracts with ad revenue streams supporting an initial CAPEX expenditure. Indeed on the supply side, most large-size FDP vendors (LCD and PDP alike) feel that their CAPEX is already spent in terms of the money already invested in their latest Gen X LCD fab of latest PDP fab. They are now looking for a more immediate return on this investment with such longer term “revenue sharing” initiatives not built into their business plans at all.

While a good majority of the infrastructure CAPEX spending will center around the cost of the displays (which will initially be 46”-50” FPDs to replace current 1-Sheet, 2-Sheet and 3-Sheet posters) the bidders for the project read more like a list of general contractors and out-of-home (OOH) advertising agencies. Publicly known bidders as of April include the likes of:

• CBS Outdoor
• JCDecaux
• Booz-Allen
• CNN Airport
• Forbes
• GE Transportation
• IBM
• Cisco
• Transit TV
• Turner Private Networks
• Washington Post
• Siemens
• NBC Universal
• Northrop-Grumman

As a “zero cost” bid, the WMATA expects to pay no money for these installations, maintenance and content management, with the winner of the bid keeping all revenues associated with advertising. Based upon past history of revenues generated from prior contracts, this contract is expected to yield revenues in excess of $35M annually but require a CAPEX spending of an estimated $50M with $2.5M to be paid upfront to the WMATA and no revenue contributions available until July 10, 2010 (the date when the current CBS outdoor contract expires).

While the aggressive bid references the eventual inclusion of in-car digital signage within its 1,508 buses and its 1,128 rail cars, initial roll-out of the digital signage network is focused on installing more traditional large-size FPD displays at each of the WMATA’s 86 stations, each with approximately 11 screens. As of March 2008, DisplaySearch’s Monthly Large Format Commercial Displays Sell Through Report shows that the weighted average of 46” LCD based commercial grade displays were $2,335-$2,600 (depending upon resolution). If TV-grade LCD displays are specified, then the price for the displays alone drops to $1,170-$1,615 in March 2008 dollars. Assuming that for such out-of-home environments that commercial grade displays will be used, with additional modifications necessary to ruggedize these displays for semi-outdoor use, protection against vandalism, etc. then, to err on the side of caution, the cost of the 946 46” displays alone would be between $2.3M – $2.6M.

While the FPD industry and the OOH advertising industries still struggle with cost-effective partnerships which fit the very different go-to-market strategies of each of these industries, the DC Metro system seems to feel that the timing is right to have these organizations get together, or to have a third-party general contractor facilitate such an endeavor but is this a reality or wishful thinking? The concept seems like a simple one; have advertisers subsidize a wholesale change-out of the communication system of the DC metro system from printed advertising to digital signs which not only allow for advertising, but will also be used for transit information (such as train/bus schedules), emergency warning systems, etc. Is it naïve of the WMATA to expect that the CAPEX expenditure will be borne upfront by one entity, or is it just too much up-front cost with questionable returns on the back-end at this time? Keep in mind that the winner of the contract is responsible for not only advertising content but also porting over several other data sources and splitting their screens between information displays and digital advertising. Can/will any one entity step-up to the rigorous up-front demands? If so, this will indeed continue to help set a precedent in regards to “who pays” for the digital signage infrastructure swap out.

It should be noted that similar initiatives have been announced across the US with the Chicago Transit Authority – CTA, which also claims to be the second largest public transit system in the United States, signing a 10-year contract with its out-of-home advertising agency, Titan Worldwide, to overhaul its transit system in a similar way. This initiative is more of a revenue sharing initiative between Titan and the city, in that all advertising revenues will not go to the city but will be split between the public and private sectors.

Figure 2 Chicago’s Transit Authority’s Revenue Sharing Venture with Titan Worldwide

So while on the surface such a project seems enticing (at least to the bidders listed above), there are still many questions regarding digital signage which cannot be answered by anyone in any industry at this moment. Most of the questions are around the lack of standards for how much advertisers will pay for placement on “digital poster boards.” There are industry-established metrics for other types of media such as radio, television, newspaper, magazine, poster-board out-of-home static media, etc. (usually classified by CPMs or Cost-Per-Thousands of views).  But for digital content, which can be dynamic and thus sold in increments of the day (such as one ad in the morning, one in the noon hour and one at night), CPMs for this brave new world of digital advertising are just unknowns at this early stage. Many compare dynamic digital advertising to the early days of banner advertising on the web in that no one knew what to charge, how to quantify (cost per hit, cost per impression, cost per click-through, etc.), with many companies building business models which attracted people to their sites by selling product below cost, assuming that they would make up the difference by subsidized advertising.

While many of these “dot.bombs” learned the hard way that this model was not sustainable, others survived and this market has now matured. The complication for the digital signage industry is that there is now significant capital expenditure which also comes along with this subsidized advertising. This requires someone to make an up-front investment and has been a key barrier to seeing this market explode. With the exception of a few pilot programs, no one entity has thus far stepped up to take this subsidization risk and the question “who pays for the digital signage infrastructure swap out” remains. If the viewpoint of the District of Columbia is any indication, then they believe that someone will take this risk; by not having FPD producers bidding as prime contractors for this business, it seems that, at least in their opinion, it is not the FPD industry which will bear this up-front cost.

In the highest rated session of the 10th annual USFPD conference, industry leaders NEC, LGE and Samsung all presented their outlook for the future of large-size FPDs in commercial environments, most notably in the Digital Signage market. Signs of collaboration between display companies and out-of-home (OOH) media companies such as JCDecaux, ClearChannel and others are all around but it seems that each of these two very different markets (the FPD industry—including both the LCD and the Plasma sectors—and the OOH Media Industry) look at the market from very different perspectives. Many of the largest players in the FPD industry clearly see the out-of-home advertising market as THE next big market for flat panel displays.

In the case of LCD manufacturers, these companies have enjoyed cyclical growth in the average size of displays which they produced starting with notebook applications in the 1990s, to larger size “displays” in the form of desktop monitor applications in the late 1990s and early 2000s (which required larger glass substrates) now into televisions have an even larger average display area on average than monitors (thus again requiring larger glass substrate sizes). But beyond the home where few truly envision every home having 65”+ flat panel TVs, in order to increase production yet again, FPD manufacturers are looking beyond the home to out-of-home digital signage, or the replacement of adverting bulleting boards as the next wave of growth for the industry. Any quick run through an airport or a shopping mall reveals a significant installed base of printed poster board advertising which most FPD manufacturers envision as being replaced with larger size LCD or PDP displays (typically 70” and larger).

From the FPD producers’ point of view, whether it be LCD or PDP producers, they feel that the CAPEX for producing such larger size displays has either already been spent or is already in the pipeline (the recently announced Sharp/Sony Gen 10 fab, for instance was announced to be an investment of ¥380 billion; equivalent to about $3.9B). From the standpoint of OOH media companies, however, questions of whether or not the move to dynamic digital signage will allow them to make more money either by turning over ads quicker, allowing for day-parting (selling ad space for say the morning rush hour to a coffee company, the noon hour to a sandwich company and the evening hours to alcohol companies) or increase their revenues in other ways are still mostly theoretical with the industry not yet having enough momentum to standardize on a CPM rate (CPM=cost-per-thousands; a standard metric for advertising of all types ranging from television ads with the most costly CPMs to radio advertising with much lower CPMs). So from their point of view, they cannot yet justify the capital expenditure necessary on their part to swap-out their static poster-board ads with LCD or Plasma displays and thus often look to FPD companies to help subsidize various pilot projects.

While some sort of cost-sharing or subsidizing business models are quite far from current industry practices for FPD producers (which are accustomed to making product and selling them for up-front dollars as opposed to say, “loaning” it out in exchange for a portion of ad revenues) some argue that this is the catalyst necessary to make the Digital Signage market THE next big market for FPD displays. While full details of the business model remain officially undisclosed, Samsung’s quite visible partnership with JCDecaux referenced in their presentation can clearly be seen at New York’s JFK airport were forty (40) 70” LCD displays are being used in an extremely impressive digital signage solution.

There was a clear call from NEC at the conference that when display companies do entertain such business practices (and help subsidize the cost of a visible digital signage installation) that they are sending the wrong message to media companies who have little or no visibility to the costs already incurred by FPD producers. So the question remains, is Digital Signage the fourth wave of growth in the FPD market as LGE indicated in their presentation and if so are closer partnerships between FPD companies and media companies the solution necessary to catapult this market from its current steady-strong state-of-growth to one of exponential growth?