Message from the co-CEOs

2024 was a very robust year for JCDecaux in a challenging macroeconomic environment with geopolitical uncertainties.

Thanks to our unique and geographically well diversified global OOH media footprint, we reported a strong organic revenue growth of +9.7%, to reach €3,935.3 million, including a record performance in Q4 despite the lack of recovery in China which remains well below 2019.

Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH), the fastest-growing media segment, grew by +21.9% and now represents 39% of our total revenue. Programmatic advertising revenues through the VIOOH SSP (Supply-Side Platform), which include mostly incremental revenue from innovative dynamic data-driven campaigns and new advertisers, grew by +45.6% in 2024 to reach €145.9 million i.e. 9.5% of our digital revenue. Programmatic is a very important source of growth for our industry and JCDecaux is at the forefront of this market transformation. We are the only company in the industry with our own solutions covering the entire value chain in this strategic area. The DOOH programmatic ecosystem continued to gain traction, with on the one hand, the SSP VIOOH, the most connected platform on the market with 46 DSPs and active in 24 countries; on the other, the DSP Displayce, connected in 80 countries, purchasing through the DMP (Demand Management Platform).
 

Leveraging on this strong revenue growth, all our financial indicators grew double digits. Our operating margin grew by +15.3%, our net income by +23.8%, to reach €258.9 million, combined with a solid free cash flow generation of €231.9 million. Given these solid results and our strong financial structure, we proposed the payment of a dividend of €0.55 per share for the 2024 financial year.

This solid momentum reflects the ongoing commitment of our employees to take on new challenges and drive our business forward, resulting in contract wins and renewals which have further strengthened our position this year. These include in street furniture, bus shelters in Rome, London and Stockholm as well as digital CIPs in Rio de Janeiro; in billboard, the installation in Melbourne  of our largest digital billboard worldwide, covering an area of 700 sqm - the biggest Out-of-Home display in Australia; in transport, the Hong Kong Metro, Sydney buses, Stockholm's main metro stations as well as Rome's metro, buses and trams. Finally, in terms of airports, we won Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport in China for the first time and renewed those in Macau, Sydney as well as Dammam at the very beginning of 2025. To champion eco-friendly mobility, France is scaling up its self-service bicycle scheme. Toulouse launched a new service end of August 2024 featuring new traditional and e-bikes. In Lyon, Vélo’v rolled out its new range of e-bikes in early 2025, as the service celebrates two decades of service in France’s second-largest metropolitan area.

Regarding external growth, which is an integral part of our strategy, October 2024 saw JCDecaux Top Media Publigrafik and IMC merge their activities in Central America, underscoring another milestone in our regional development and paving the way for a new alliance of family-owned companies. In Italy, we completed the strategic merger of IGPDecaux and IGP (formerly Clear Channel), boosting our nationwide reach and enhancing urban mobility with a fully integrated offering of self-service bicycles in Milan and Verona. In May 2024, JCDecaux announced the sale of part of its stake in APG|SGA to NZZ in Switzerland. The proactive management of our portfolio of asset reflects our ability to seize transformative opportunities for our company’s future. In 2025, we will continue to develop our activity by combining organic growth with bolt-on acquisitions.

This demonstrates JCDecaux’s ability to reinvent itself, to innovate to strengthen performance and to continue to be the partner of choice for our customers, meeting their expectations. The tradition of innovation is inseparable from our R&D based in France, with some 850 models owned by the company and 182 patents active to date.

Our business model contributes in a virtuous way to the ecological transition, as illustrated by its high share of revenue, nearly 50%, aligned with the Green Taxonomy European regulation. Thanks to our continued environmental actions, the Group has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions (scopes 1, 2, 3 – market based) by nearly 30% in 2024 compared to 2019. Our climate strategy aiming to achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2050 was approved by the SBTi in June 2024. Achieving these objectives requires an evolution of public procurement to take even better account of ESG criteria. In line with our commitment to the United Nations Global Compact, our ESG approach and performance have once again been recognised as best-in-class by extra-financial rating agencies including our placement on the CDP A List for the second year in a row and the Gold Medal status from EcoVadis.

JCDecaux is also committed to eco-design with the launch in October 2024 of the Eco Design Index, an innovative educational tool for evaluating and communicating the environmental performance of our street furniture to develop and promote solutions with a lower environmental impact. Our investments in ESG is a clear demonstration of JCDecaux’s desire to assert its position as a sustainable media and is an asset in a time of responsible public procurement.

As a responsible company, JCDecaux also continued its road safety partnership with the United Nations, launching a campaign in more than 40 countries, and in all our 80 countries by the end of 2025, which spotlights high-profile sports personalities and leading cultural figures.

Building on this unique year 2024 marked by the 60th anniversary of our company founded in 1964 by Jean-Claude Decaux and the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we are pleased to welcome 2025 with confidence, passion and determination. Going forward, we intend to gradually increase the dividend while maintaining a balanced cash allocation with capex and bolt-on M&A.

Thank you to our teams for their talent and commitment that ensure operational excellence, to our customers for their trust in our contribution to their brands’ development, to our partners for their loyalty in allowing us to provide them with the best quality of service and to our shareholders for their support.