Ströer: Record levels of revenue and profit in the first quarter of 2025

OOH Media core business grows by 15% to EUR 210m; consolidated Group revenue (total) up by 5% at EUR 475m / Programmatic DOOH advances by 36% and revenue from digital OOH business by 27% / Consolidated earnings figures (adjusted) increase at a faster rate than revenue: EBITDA rises by 8% and EBIT by 15%; net income improves by 30% / DOOH and OOH are the most popular advertising media in Germany

Ströer SE & Co. KGaA has made a successful start to 2025, once again achieving record figures in the first quarter of the year. Revenue from the core DOOH and OOH business grew by 15% to EUR 210m, exceeding expectations, while consolidated revenue (total) rose by 5% (4% in organic terms) to EUR 475m. EBITDA (adjusted) improved by 8% to a new record for a first quarter of EUR 117m. EBIT (adjusted) rose faster still, increasing by 15% to around EUR 40m. 

The positive performance of the out-of-home advertising segment reflects the continuous shift in the media mix toward a steadily growing share attributable to DOOH and OOH. The extraordinarily rapid growth of the programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) business (up by 36%) is a key driver of this change. Consequently, the revenue share contributed by DOOH business to Ströer’s out-of-home advertising business climbed to a new first-quarter record of around 41%.

Ströer expects to continue on this trajectory over the long term. Along with the quality of the digital infrastructure, crucial success factors include the quality of software, data, and AI, and an excellent carbon footprint across the full range of media. According to information from the Institute for Digital Out of Home Media, DOOH is one of the most efficient mediums in terms of energy and resource consumption and thus actively and efficiently contributes to the decarbonization of the advertising industry. In addition, current city news and cultural information, as well as important alerts and other municipal information shared via DOOH infrastructure deliver meaningful societal added value for all local residents. 

Ströer is increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize the entire play-out process. AI-based tools support the planning of campaigns. The Ströer Creative Analyzer, an application launched in the first quarter of 2025, optimizes advertisements and their effectiveness, and supports the Dynamic Content Optimizer, a more established application that applies a dynamic, audience-based display logic to maximize the impact of individual campaigns.

At the heart of Ströer’s AI-supported software landscape in sales and marketing sits Core, a proprietary, digital, data-driven marketing technology (martech) marketplace through which Ströer can market both its own and third-party inventory. New customers are attracted to Ströer by the seamless integration of DOOH into advertising customers’ digital martech ecosystems and by innovative use cases.

“We established our DOOH portfolio in the outernet as the real world counterpart to internet advertising, enabling us to generate significant added value for our customers. By embedding new municipal services such as cultural information, city news, and important alerts, we deliver very significant societal benefits for all residents of relevant urban areas. Revenue growth of around 27% in our digital out-of-home advertising business shows clearly that customers are continuing to adjust their advertising budgets in favor of our growing, high-reach digital screen infrastructure. Our new proprietary multi-channel SSP ‘Core’ is playing a key role in this all-encompassing digital transformation, which is unfolding across the marketing sector as a whole and not just out-of-home advertising. Marketing evolves into martech, and ever growing budgets are being directed toward our digital out-of-home advertising infrastructure as trading desks (DSPs) are linked up to our multi-channel SSP ‘Core’. The growing significance of software, data, and AI is a critical factor in Ströer’s success. Moreover, a study by Havas Media found that out-of-home 3 advertising is by far the most popular advertising format among consumers,” says Christian Schmalzl, Co-CEO of Ströer. “Against this backdrop, we are very optimistic about the years ahead. This is the start of an incredible journey, and we are excited to see our visions become reality and our extensive investments pay off. With DOOH and OOH as key drivers, we have significantly accelerated average revenue growth in our core business since the end of the coronavirus pandemic, achieving double-digit percentage increases. We expect this trend to remain intact over the long term.”

OOH Media

The revenue of the OOH Media segment rose by 15% (13% in organic terms) in the first three months of 2025, from EUR 182m to EUR 210m. This revenue growth came from both OOH (Classic) (up by 8%) and DOOH (up by 27%). The latter was mainly driven by high demand from national customers, with double-digit increases. The segment’s EBITDA (adjusted) advanced as well, rising by 18% from EUR 73m to EUR 86m. The EBITDA margin (adjusted) improved from 40.2% in the first quarter of 2024 to 41.1% in the same quarter of 2025. 

Digital & Dialog Media

Revenue in the Digital & Dialog Media segment continued to grow, increasing by 1% from EUR 203m in the first quarter of 2024 to EUR 206m in the reporting quarter. Growth in this segment was driven by the Digital product group, fueled by the sustained strength of the programmatic business and the positive performance of T-Online. The Dialog product group recorded marginal growth. EBITDA (adjusted) for the first quarter came to EUR 28m (Q1 2024: EUR 31m). The EBITDA margin (adjusted) stood at 13.6% (Q1 2024: 15.4%). 

DaaS & E-Commerce 

The DaaS & E-Commerce segment achieved revenue of EUR 91m in the first quarter of 2025 (Q1 2024: EUR 92m). Thanks to expansion of its national and international business, Statista increased its revenue by more than 5% to EUR 42m in the reporting quarter, compared with EUR 40m in the prior-year period. Asam’s revenue came to EUR 49m for the first three months of 2025 (Q1 2024: EUR 52m). EBITDA (adjusted) in the DaaS & E-Commerce segment amounted to EUR 11m for the first quarter of 2025 (Q1 2024: EUR 12m) and the corresponding EBITDA margin (adjusted) was around 13% (Q1 2024: 13%).