Business News
Ströer Media International Expanding Into Southeast Asia
Tuesday 29. January 2008 - - Acquisition of Shares in Malaysian Outdoor Advertiser "59 images" - Outdoor Advertising Boom Through Modernisation of the Product Portfolio Expected - Malaysian Deal Base for Expansion into Southeast Asian Markets
First Dubai, now Malaysia – mere weeks after the entry onto the Middle Eastern advertising market through the acquisition of a majority share in Dubai-based Arabian outdoor advertiser Concept Outdoor, Ströer Media International has now managed another coup in its internationalisation strategy.
With the acquisition of shares in Malaysian outdoor advertiser “59 images”, Ströer Media International GmbH, a joint venture of Ströer Out-of-Home Media AG and Oaktree Capital Management, has undertaken its first major deal on Southeast Asian territory. “59 images Holding” is the freshly minted company jointly held by Ströer Media International and its subsidiary Ströer Malaysia, and is tasked with serving as a base point from which to open up other Southeast Asian countries. Ströer Media International is particularly interested in exploiting growth opportunities inherent to the numerous infrastructure projects in the economically strong markets of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The expansion and modernisation of the product portfolio will open new advertising prospects and spur the growth of outdoor advertising.
Among the assets being assumed are licences for about 1,500 outdoor advertising sites. These include top locations in Kuala Lumpur such as on the interstate motorway between the larger cities and in the most important cities in West Malaysia.
“Our know-how combined with new product lines will ring in a new era for the Southeast Asian out-of-home market. Our long-term goal is to create a platform to provide advertisers not only with country-specific products, but a trans-national networked product range for Southeast Asia as well. The introduction of our advertising media will allow our customers to undertake campaign advertising for the first time, as opposed to the previous trend of long-term advertising,” says Udo Müller, CEO of Ströer Out-of-Home Media AG.
The Malaysian advertising market has a volume of USD 1.45 bn (EUR 1.01 bn). Out-of-home media have a market share of three percent. The average growth rates of the outdoor market will total more than 10 percent between 2007 and 2010, claims a prognosis by Zenith Optimedia.