Publicis Groupe, in a "challenging" global market, posted better than expected revenue growth in the September quarter.
Organic growth was up 5.3% driven by bigger market share and strong wins in media, data and technology.
Net Revenue for the quarter was 3.241 billion euros.
The global advertising group, despite seeing budget cuts in traditional advertising, lifted full year organic growth guidance to 5.5% to 6%, up from 5% previously.
Publicis is the first of the global advertising groups to report results for the September quarter.
“Our media capabilities, which continued to gain market share, and Epsilon’s data offer were the main drivers of this performance, achieving high single-digit and double-digit growth respectively,” says CEO Arthur Sadoun.
“At a moment when the comparable consulting firms experienced project delays, (digital transformation consulting company) Publicis Sapient nonetheless continued to grow, and Creative confirmed its resilience once again, in spite of industry-wide cuts to classic advertising activities.”
All regions posted “solid” organic growth. The US was up 3.2% on top of double digits in the last two years, Europe grew 10.7% and APAC was 3.8% higher.
Compared to pre pandemic 2019, the September quarter was up 22%.
“Today we have a differentiated go-to-market, that allows us to gain market share; a uniquely balanced revenue mix that makes us more resilient to business cycles; and a platform organisation that enables us to post industry high financial ratios,” says Sadoun.
“This gives us the confidence to further upgrade our 2023 guidance, even in a context of rising global socioeconomic tensions.
“For the rest of the year, we intend to lead what we believe to be the two major priorities for our industry today: bringing our teams back together in person, and accelerating the AI-ification of our operations, which we are uniquely able to do through Publicis Sapient. ”
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