WPP posted 3.8% organic growth for the September quarter, adjusting its full year guidance slightly higher as the global advertising group reported “strong momentum”.
Third quarter revenue was £3.57 billion, up 10.3% on a reported basis.
The company upgraded its full year guidance for like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs (organic revenue) to 6.5%-7%, up from 6%-7%.
WPP says it will continue to manage costs with “discipline”.
Both the organic growth and re-forecast of full year revenue was below that of other major global advertising groups reporting third quarter numbers.
IPG posted organic growth of 5.6% for the quarter (and 7% forecast for the full year), Publicis Groupe 10.3% (full year 8.5%) and Omnicom 7.5% (full year 8% to 8.5%).
WPP CEO Mark Read: “WPP continues to show strong momentum, reflecting broad-based growth across our agencies, markets and industry sectors and the investment by our clients in marketing, ecommerce and digital transformation. Our performance on a three-year basis has continued to improve each quarter during 2022.
“Our new business success reflects the quality of our creative work, our strength in media and our ability to deliver integrated solutions to clients.
"During the quarter we achieved $1.7 billion of net new business, including assignments with Nestlé, Samsung and SC Johnson. Our leading scale and differentiated offer were exemplified by GroupM which led COMvergence’s new business and retention global rankings in the first half of 2022.
“We enter the last quarter of the year with confidence, based on the leading competitive position of our businesses, our client momentum and the knowledge that the actions we have taken to strengthen WPP leave us well placed to support our clients in navigating the economic uncertainties ahead.”
Compared to pre pandemic 2019 numbers, growth was +10.9% (Q2 +9.7%, Q1 +9.2%)
Top five markets: US +4.5%, UK +4.2%, Germany -8.7% (+3.3% excluding the impact of COVID-related contract in prior year), China -9.0%, India +10.7%.
By business sector: Global Integrated Agencies +4.3% (GroupM +4.7%, ex GroupM +4.0%), Public Relations +5.8%, Specialist Agencies -3.9% (+8.6% excluding COVID-related contract above).
The numbers for the September quarter:
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