The Mysterious Instance Of The Disappearing Competitor: Focus Media Edition

JCDecaux - the French multinational giant - is the largest display advertising fellowship inwards the world. They too claim inwards their latest annual study to live on the largest display advertising concern inwards China.

Every yr they issue inwards their annual study a listing of the largest display advertising businesses inwards the footing - their competitors.

Here is that listing from the 2007 annual study :

On this list, Focus Media is the eighth largest fellowship inwards the footing inwards this space.

And hither is the listing from the 2008 annual report:

Again nosotros run into Focus Media - similar a shot the 6th largest display advertising fellowship inwards the world.

Here is the 2009 list:

Peculiarly Focus Media is nowhere to live on seen on this listing (by the terminate of 2009 it should convey risen to 5th place).

Focus Media is no longer mentioned inwards JCDecaux's 2010 together with 2011 accounts.

Why?

Well I tin mean value of 2 hypotheses:

The commencement is that JCDecaux desire to sustain their claim of beingness the biggest display advertising concern inwards Red People's Republic of China - a claim that is exactly non tenable if they include Focus Media inwards the comparison. Moreover they don't desire to increase the credibility amongst advertisers of Focus Media together with its products. After all Focus Media has substantially outperformed JCDecaux inwards Red People's Republic of China - growing much faster together with at much fatter margins.

An option hypothesis is that they don't believe Focus Media's numbers.






John

PS. I commencement constitute these lists when researching Red People's Republic of China Media Express. CCME supposedly competed amongst JCDecaux inwards placing adverts on world carry (in CCME's illustration to a greater extent than ofttimes than non buses including aerodrome buses). CCME nonetheless was a consummate fraud together with the stock now trades at 2c. Focus Media is evidently existent - their displays are widespread.