The SCREENS.tv Blog

Beyond Chindia (0)

 

So I’m sitting in Vegas, making some last-minute amends to my presentation at this week’s Digital Signage Expo, and waiting for a snail-slow AOL connection (for which thanks to fellow SCREENS.tv blogger Steve Gold, who leapt to the rescue after my…no, you really don’t want the soap opera of my laptop woes, do you? I’m sure you have your own.)

Anyway, this gives me time to think a bit laterally around the obvious topics of my presentation, which is going to focus on some of the more interesting recent deployments outside the American market.

And one of the questions which strikes me is: when asked about the next big markets for screen media, we’ve all said “China, India” so often that it’s becoming Pavlovian. But where else – specifically, not just in vague regional terms?

Here’s a shortlist to kick the discussion off, at least.

The Middle East is a no-brainer and indeed there are already signs of conference/expo activity there, which is a good indicator. The UAE and particularly (but by no means exclusively) the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi are likely to be early hotspots; we’ve also reported recently on a flurry of activity in Turkey.

Among the other nations, I’d give serious attention to the potential of Egypt, Lebanon if or when stability permits, and Saudi Arabia for some applications, not forgetting either the small nations of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, which should all exhibit UAE-style demand. All these can be serviced from the Gulf relatively easily. Israel of course is also a likely player with a strong tech and media pedigree.

Latin America is a big place and I think we can separate it into three strong markets. First, Mexico. Second, Brazil. Third, Argentina (which is largely to say Buenos Aires) and Chile. Serving these may well require on-the-ground presence in multiple cities.

Central and eastern Europe, with its patchwork of languages, cultures and histories, is perhaps even less cohesive than LatAm. There’s been a fair bit of activity already in Poland, but there’s surely room for much more; Hungary has struck me as pretty quiet to date, an impression that a quick screen-media-hunt on a recent expedition to Budapest did nothing to dispel; the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Ukraine and of course Romania, where Monopoly Media is already so active, should all go on our shortlist too.

We're also hearing encouraging things about a ramp-up of activity in South Africa.

And I’d turn to the Antarctic market next, except the AOL download has finally finished. Maybe at DSE…

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