Sometimes, the information you don’t receive is the most compelling. Although Table 5 in the following report says that the average respondent saw its sales rise approximately 5% from 2001 to 2002, we had to ask some additional questions. Given our knowledge of the quantity-sign portion of the industry, we asked Smyth Marketing Resources, our research company, if they had received a response from Company X. Or Company Y. Or Company Z.
They hadn’t. From other sources, we knew that these companies suffered declining sales in 2002. We knew that a 10% decline in sales for them countered a 10% increase from 20 custom-sign companies. We knew from the suppliers of basic industry products that sales were down. So our best estimation is a 5% decline in the on-premise, electric-sign industry in 2002, which drops the overall industry figure to $5.1 billion. The silver lining is the seeming improvement for the custom-electric portion of the industry.
This represents the second consecutive year for an overall industry decline, an approximate 9% drop from a high of $5.6 billion for 2000. This happened once before. The industry peaked at $3.6 billion in 1989 and then suffered consecutive years of decline down to $3 billion. However, from 1992-2000, a nine-year period, industry sales nearly doubled.
To view a full 2002 Electric State of the Industry Report (13 pages), purchase a back issue of Signs of the Times, July 2003 magazine here. Preview:
Although activity increased in every area, the mix of types of business conducted remained consistent over the past year, as well as the past two years. Table 9a indicates that Custom-built signs increased the most from 41% in 2001 to 43% in 2002, and maintenance/repair decreased the most from 15.1% in 2001 to 13.7% in 2002.
Table 17 indicates an average of 57.5 employees at quantity-sign companies; for 2001, that figure was 84.3. For all previous years (1995-2000), the lowest figure had been 123.8.