JCDECAUX AFRICA: Delivery for Clients Help JCDecaux to Shine Bright in Africa

In September 2022, JCDecaux Africa was cementing its position as the continent’s number one out-of-home advertising operator, with almost 30,000 advertising panels, a presence in 19 African countries, and a new Managing Director setting the agenda for a more data-driven, digitally connected era of outdoor media. Three years on, the numbers have grown, the projects have become more ambitious, the technology has moved faster, and the model that distinguishes JCDecaux from every other advertising company on the continent has only become more relevant.

That model — providing public services to cities, funded by advertising revenue — is a proven philosophy, and it runs through everything the company does.

“JCDecaux is a public service business – we provide a free public service to municipalities and cities, and we use advertising to pay for those services,” explains Lunga Majija, Managing Director at JCDecaux South Africa. “It differs from city to city depending on the needs of the city.”

He highlights the Lagos example as the perfect case study. Faced with chronic traffic congestion, the city needed a traffic information system. JCDecaux provided one — built on AI developed in-house, deployed through Bluetooth sensors across the city, generating real-time data and making it publicly available. Third party advertising, managed by JCDecaux the funds the tech. The city gets infrastructure it could not otherwise afford. Commuters get information that makes their daily lives easier. Advertisers get audiences that are engaged and receptive. Nobody loses.

Majija himself is a product of the business’s depth. Having studied civil engineering and spent time as a structural engineer before pivoting through the energy sector — ThyssenKrupp in petrochemicals, then Hitachi in the Mitsubishi stable — he joined JCDecaux as Operations Director and worked his way through multiple roles in multiple countries before taking on South Africa, which represents 60% of the group’s overall Africa business.

The 180-person operation he oversees is growing at 10 to 12% year-on-year, a figure that reflects both the underlying strength of the out-of-home advertising market and the specific competitive advantages JCDecaux brings to it. The international group’s full-year 2025 results confirmed the global picture: revenue of €3,967 million, organic digital growth of 10%, and free cash flow reaching an all-time high of €342.9 million — already exceeding the targets the group had set for 2026.

South Africa’s media and advertising market is itself in an expansive moment. Commerce media — the intersection of retail data, digital advertising and consumer behaviour — is growing rapidly, with estimates putting the sector’s value at R4 billion in the country. The demand for accountable, measurable advertising that reaches consumers at or near the point of purchase is exactly what the evolution of OOH technology enables, and JCDecaux is at the front of that shift. PwC’s Entertainment and Media Outlook consistently projects OOH as one of the most resilient and growing segments of the advertising mix across African markets, driven by urbanisation, digitisation and the increasing sophistication of location-based targeting.

CAMPAIGNS THAT LAND

The work speaks clearly for itself. A campaign for insurance business Pineapple — developed in partnership with creative agency Halo — became one of the most celebrated OOH campaigns in South African advertising in recent memory, winning a Grand Effie Award, the highest honour in effectiveness marketing, while delivering measurable results for the brand in terms of user growth and funding. The campaign combined an extensive network of custom-painted suburban street furniture sites across major Johannesburg suburbs, digital OOH, SuperSigns and Citilites, with data-driven location intelligence that factored in proximity to car dealerships, high-traffic commuter nodes, and contextual creative matched to different consumer segments. The results validated the JCDecaux argument that OOH, when executed with precision, delivers on both brand building and performance marketing simultaneously.

The Mazda partnership demonstrated the platform’s flexibility for automotive clients, deploying targeted OOH across high-dwell and high-visibility environments to drive awareness among the right audiences at the right moments. A collaboration with Mobiclicks extended the capability further — connecting the physical OOH network with digital mobile targeting through a partnership that allows advertisers to follow audiences from billboard to handset, closing the loop between outdoor exposure and digital engagement. Naked Insurance joined the roster of brands using JCDecaux’s location intelligence to drive both brand salience and direct customer acquisition.

Beyond South Africa, JCDecaux’s subsidiary in Angola was awarded the advertising concession for the new Dr Antonio Agostinho Neto International Airport in Luanda, a five-year contract covering more than 200 advertising spaces across the airport designed to handle 15 million passengers annually. The win brings JCDecaux’s African airport portfolio to 19 and consolidates its presence in Angola, adding a major new gateway to a continent-wide network that already includes some of Africa’s busiest transit hubs. Airport advertising — high dwell time, high-income audiences, international reach — is one of JCDecaux’s most powerful global propositions, and the Angola contract is a significant expansion of that in the African context.

EMBEDDED IN THE COUNTRY

The conversations Majija is currently having with the City of Johannesburg, the City of Cape Town and eThekwini Municipality point to a pipeline of public-private partnerships that go well beyond advertising. Each city has different problems and different needs — the model is designed to be adaptive, not prescriptive. “We hope to continue to work successfully in South Africa as we have such a strong heritage here,” Majija says. The details are early-stage and under wraps for now, but the pattern from Lagos and other markets suggests that what emerges will be technology-led, publicly beneficial, and commercially self-funding through advertising.

The supply chain that supports the operation is deliberately aligned with the country’s transformation priorities. Hardware often comes from global suppliers — China, France, elsewhere — but daily operations including maintenance, flighting and installation are managed through long-term service agreements with local engineering companies and fabricators.

“We are a transformed business and we ensure our supply chain is transformed too,” Majija says. However, values alignment across the supply chain extends beyond simple compliance: “We consider ourselves a highly ethical business and we work with companies that are aligned with that. Even in terms of innovation, we work with partners that are equally pioneering and can support our strategies.”

An active CSI programme is currently channelling funds and materials toward the manufacture of school bags for local learners — a small but tangible expression of the belief that “profitability doesn’t have to come at the cost of doing the right thing,” as Majija puts it.

The enterprise development programme adds another dimension entirely. As the largest OOH inventory holder in the country, JCDecaux supports smaller, independent media owners — technically competitors — by helping them with scalability and access to the tools and relationships that allow them to grow. It is a counterintuitive act in a competitive market, and it reflects a long view of what a healthy, thriving OOH sector looks like. A rising tide, in this context, is good for everyone, including the market leader.

Globally, JCDecaux came into 2026 with momentum. Organic growth is forecast to exceed 5% in the first quarter. The operating margin rate already exceeds the group’s own 2026 targets. The digital share of revenue is growing — already at 41.7% of group revenue in 2025 and accelerating. In South Africa, where the company’s 10 to 12% annual growth reflects both market expansion and the strength of its own platform, JCDecaux is not simply riding a wave, it is helping to generate it.