WPP is disappointed in its September quarter top line revenue growth as clients continue to be “cautious” advertising spenders.
Reported revenue was down 1.8% to GBP3.508 billion but up 2.3% on a like-for-like basis.
The world’s biggest advertising group, for the second time this year, cut its full year revenue outlook to growth of between 0.5% to and 1%, down from a previous estimate of 1.5% to 3%.
WPP's global peers have reported mixed results. IPG last week posted a 0.4% fall in organic revenue growth for the September quarter, weighed down by cautious technology clients and marketers concerned about dark economic winds..
However, Omnicom earlier in the month posted "strong" organic revenue growth of 3.3%, Publicis reported organic growth up 5.3% and Havas was 4.5% higher.
WPP reported growth in UK, Western Continental Europe and the Rest of World, offset by falls in North America, with continued weakness from technology clients and in China.
“Our top-line performance in Q3 was below our expectations and continued to be impacted by the cautious spending trends we saw in Q2, particularly across technology clients with more impact from this felt in GroupM over the summer than the first half," says CEO Mark Read.
“We continue to win both creative and media assignments from leading global companies including significant wins in the third quarter with Estée Lauder (media), Hyatt (creative), Lenovo (creative), Nestlé (media) and Verizon (creative).
“Our net new business performance of $1.4bn in the quarter showed sequential improvement after a tougher first half.
“We will provide more detail on today’s announcements, our strategic roadmap and actions to drive growth, further efficiencies and margin expansion at our Capital Markets Day in January.”
September quarter 2023:
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