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The U.S. remains the biggest market for digital out-of-home media, but China is closing on it rapidly – and American growth is largely driven by digital billboards, rather than place-based digital signage networks, according to the latest analysis from PQ Media.

Although the U.S. accounts for about $2bn of the worldwide total of $7bn in DOOH advertising revenue, it lags behind the global 15 percent growth rate, says PQ. An increase in American operator revenue of around 11 percent in 2011 was due in large part to 20 percent growth in revenue from digital billboards, while revenue from place-based networks rose by only 7.5 percent, thanks in part to “substantial slowdown in the cinema category”.

By contrast, China is the fastest-growing market, with total DOOH revenues jumping nearly 40 percent in 2011 to $1.44bn. China and Japan are also the next biggest after the U.S. in terms of current size, while Britain leads the European market and Brazil in Latin America. Thailand and Brazil have the highest penetration of DOOH into the overall out-of-home market, with digital accounting for half of all out-of-home revenues in the former and a third in the latter.

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An advertising agency in one of the world’s smallest countries is expecting interest in digital out-of-home media to develop there after the arrival of its first digital billboard.

FSi Creative, in the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, installed the billboard from U.S. supplier Formetco earlier this year and is now running it on Scala 5 software.

Formetco had earlier supplied screens for an FSi teenage-football project in nearby Trinidad.

“We expect both Caribbean operators of digital-signage platforms, as well as advertisers, to show considerably more interest in digital outdoor through 2011 and 2012,” said FSi’s Kenny Green.

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