MCDecaux awarded exclusive management of Tokyo’s advertising bus shelter panels

JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC), the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, today announced that, following a competitive tender, its Japanese subsidiary MCDecaux (JCDecaux: 85%; Mitsubishi Corporation: 15%) has been awarded exclusive management of the bus shelter advertising panels owned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of Transportation, as well as their maintenance.
 
This contract covers the city authority’s 97 advertising bus shelters currently in place and a further 100 that it plans to install by the time of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020. This advertising street furniture was previously carried out by a group of Japanese advertising agencies, which MCDecaux joined in April 2016.
 
Installed in the centre of Tokyo, the premium locations will expand the existing portfolio of MCDecaux, which at the end of 2016 was awarded contracts for the design, installation, maintenance and operation of more than 400 advertising bus shelters for the Tokyo Bureau of Transportation and for the Fuji Express and Tokyu Bus Corporation bus shelters.
 
MCDecaux now holds exclusive rights to the sale of advertising for almost all the bus shelters in Tokyo, which are the only public media spaces measuring more than 0.3m² allowed to be used for advertising, with the potential for an additional 1,500 bus shelters covering all 23 districts of Tokyo.
 
Strengthening its position as the number one in advertising street furniture in Japan, the world’s third biggest advertising market, MCDecaux offers advertisers an unrivalled presence, with plans for more than 3,000 2m² advertising panels in Tokyo, in addition to the 4,300 panels already deployed across 41 Japanese cities, including 20 of the country’s largest.
 
Jean-Charles Decaux, Chairman of the Executive Board and Co-CEO of JCDecaux, said:
 
"A few months after being awarded a major contract for the design, supply and operation of bus shelters by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, we are very happy that this authority has again shown its confidence in us with a full-management contract for its advertising bus shelters. This contract will enable us to offer advertisers an exclusive service, unrivalled in Tokyo, and to strengthen the national network of MCDecaux, which aims to reach 12,000 advertising panels throughout the country, with premium locations and wider advertising coverage fulfilling the needs of brand communication strategies.
 
Eighteen years after we began operating in Japan, a country where outdoor advertising was not allowed in public places until 2003, and after having gradually expanded our presence through organic growth, one contract at a time, I would like to pay tribute once again to the pioneering spirit that drives forward JCDecaux’s teams, and to thank our partner, Mitsubishi Corporation, our employees and our clients who, from the early days put their trust in us. Since Okayama in 2003 and Yokohama in 2004, our organic growth, a real strength of our Group and its business model, has enabled us to become a leading player in street furniture in Japan. We are delighted to be a partner of the country’s biggest cities, including Tokyo, and the main transport companies, so as to bring the greatest benefit to citizens, advertisers and their brands.
 
As the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, we are proud to now be present in the largest cities around the globe – Paris, London, Berlin, New York and Tokyo – a testament to the effectiveness of our street furniture advertising concept, which was devised by Jean-Claude Decaux in 1964 and established in 2,160 cities with 10,000 inhabitants and more."