Outsmart, the trade body for the Out of Home (OOH) industry has announced that OOH revenue for April to June 2021 increased 277% year-on-year, the strongest quarterly growth ever recorded by the medium and generating total revenues of £198m. Traditional and digital Out-of-Home revenues increased by 339% and 247% respectively. Digital’s share of revenue was 63%, and this remains significantly higher than its pre-pandemic share (53% in Q1 2020).

After a challenging start to the year, Out of Home saw strong sequential recovery throughout the months of the second quarter and it is expected to continue into the second half of the year.

The figures, collated by PwC, indicate recovery is underway in the sector since Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.

The outlook for the remainder of 2021 is positive with the Advertising Association/WARC forecasting total UK advertising spend to grow 18.2% this year with Out-of-Home predicted to grow 29.3%.

Justin Cochrane, Chair of Outsmart, comments “Out of Home’s strongest growth quarter ever, albeit based on a very challenging Q2 2020, is great to see. We’ve felt the momentum building and are looking forward to this continuing through the rest of the year.”

Mark Maitland, Head of Entertainment and Media at PwC, says “As restrictions in the U.K. continued to ease in Q2 and more people were out and about, it’s good to see that advertising spend has started to come back to the OOH advertising sector. With each passing month, the industry is getting closer to parity with pre-pandemic performance”.

Visit the Outsmart website to download a detailed breakdown of OOH revenue figures.