Sony Professional announced today two additions to its public display range: the 42-inch FWD-S42H1 and the 47-inch FWD-S47H, both of which boast a high resolution 1080 full High Definition (HD) screen and high brightness capabilities, meaning they maintain exceptional picture clarity even in bright-light conditions.
The two products have a ‘slim bezel’ design – namely, an external casing just 19mm wide meaning they are ideal for video wall installations.
Used as part of a multi-display format, the screens can create high impact visual displays across multiple screens.
Each of the two units can also be used in both landscape or portrait format, and the combination of the physical design and the ability to manage any number of screens from one central management platform creates a powerful public display solution for customers including retailers or events venues.
The two units are aimed at the professional market, where demand for large, public display screens is growing in areas as diverse as stadia and venues, retail outlets, public transport stations and vehicles and the healthcare industry.
Statistics from Digital Signage Today predict digital signage will be used in more than 866,000 sites globally by 2013 – a compound annual growth rate of 23.6%.
However, research conducted late last year by GIM/POPAI has revealed that the cost of acquiring digital signage technology will prove the biggest challenge in the future.
This indicates retailers could be overlooking opportunities to drive additional revenue by renting out digital signage ‘air time’ to advertisers.
The Digital Signage Today study found that less than ten percent of the retail market entirely subsidises its screens with advertising – and fewer than a quarter are running ads on their screens at all.
Advertising revenues in Western Europe are predicted to quadruple in the next 5 years – from €160m in 2007 to €626m by 2012, however – underlining the scale of the opportunity available for retailers to capitalise from.
Maxime Clairet, Public Displays Product Specialist, Sony Professional commented: “Digital signage is a proven concept for retailers to engage with customers in-store. Finding ways of maximising its usage, as well as options to save costs and generate incremental revenue is vital – particularly at a time when companies are looking for maximum ROI from their investments.
Sony also urges retailers to consider another area of untapped potential within digital signage.
The study by Digital Signage Today found that most digital signage applications are designed to be customer-facing.
Whilst increasing the levels of in-store advertising during business hours will positively impact upon revenues, those same screens can be used for employee-facing purposes, such as training sessions, “morning calls” and internal communication.
For retailers who regularly invest in off-site training for staff, this could provide an important cost saving opportunity.
Maxime Clairet continued: “There are indications that there is an untapped source of revenue retailers could be taking advantage of. Encouragingly we are seeing signs of a gradual shift in strategies for digital signage projects amongst retailers.
“For those retailers still scoping out digital signage strategies for their stores, we believe they should look towards increasing ad-revenue to subsidise, in-part or fully, their network.”
Suggested list pricing will range from €1,649 for the FWD-S42H1 and €2,199 for the FWD-S47H1.
Source: Sony Profesional
