The Neon Sign Industry 2000 — An Inaugural Report

Signs of the Times magazine has conducted what could be the first-ever neon survey of the electric sign industry. Based on 142 responses from companies ranging in sales volume from $60,000 to $109 million, here are some of the highlights.

• The average electric-sign company sells more than $700,000 in neon products annually, which accounts for nearly 30% of its income.
• For illuminated signs, neon is used 41% of the time, compared to 49% for fluorescent lighting. Exterior neon is used three times more often than interior neon.
• By a wide margin, channel letters are the most common form of neon signage.
• Wholesalers fabricate more than 40% of all neon sold.
• In 1999, the average electric-sign company sold 18% more neon than it did in 1998.
• From 1998 to 1999, neon’s percentage of electric-sign companies’ overall sales volumes grew by more than 16%.

Consider this data as a companion study to the Electric State of the Industry (SOI) report that will be published in July 2000. Note that we have calculated results in the same sales-volume categories used in the Electric SOI.

There is one major difference. The Electric SOI is conducted annually by Smyth Marketing Resources, a professional research company. This neon survey was conducted in-house, much like our studies on vinyl (February 2000), banners (November 1999) and other product/material-specific studies. Despite this distinction, this article will make frequent references to the Electric SOI and calculate comparative extrapolations as well.

To view a full report, purchase the March 2001 issue of Signs of the Times magazine, here.

Preview:

Table 1: Sales Volume 1999
Sales Volume $	#	% of Total	Sales $	% of Total	Sales/Response $	Neon Sales %	Neon Sales $	Neon Sales/Response $
<100K	15	10.9	789	0.2	52,600	62.4	492,336	32,822
100K-249K	20	14.5	3,193	0.9	159,650	39.1	1,248,463	62,423
250K-499K	22	15.9	7,375	2.2	335,227	39.4	2,905,750	132,080
500K-999K	31	22.5	19,368	5.8	624,774	29.8	5,771,664	186,183
1M-2.49M	25	18.1	38,400	11.5	1,536M	31.7	12,172,800	486,912
2.5M-4.9M	8	5.8	27,500	8.2	3,437,500	38.0	10,450,000	1,306,250
>5M	17	12.3	240,031	71.4	14,119,470	26.9	64,568,339	3,798,137
n/a	4					36.3
Total	138	100		100	2,439,536		97,609,352	707,314

Table 1 suggests smaller companies may rely on a higher percentage of neon sales. Yet the percentages are quite uniform; the range for the six sales-volume categories over $100,000 is only 27%-39%.

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