WPP has reported a five per cent year-on-year drop in revenue and a 0.7 per cent drop in like-for-like revenue in its Q1 earnings.
It said this performance was consistent with its expectations and guidance given to the market but that while it noted elevated macro uncertainty in the near-term, it expects its full-year performance to be flat.
“We continue to make solid progress on our strategic priorities. With the internal focus of integration behind them, VML and Burson are seeing renewed momentum in new business with Generali, Heineken and Levi Strauss & Co important wins during the quarter,” said WPP CEO Mark Read.
“The acquisition of InfoSum and its integration into GroupM’s data offer accelerates our AI-driven data approach, leapfrogging traditional identity-based solutions. We are also on track with the continued adoption of WPP Open across the organisation with 48,000 of our people (c.60 per cent of client-facing staff) using it in March vs. 33,000 in December.
“Our financial performance in Q1 was in line with our expectations, reflecting macroeconomic challenges and the timing of new business, and we expect these factors to continue in Q2 with performance anticipated to improve in the second half,” Read added.
With no business safe from Trump’s tariffs, Read said that while WPP was not “itself directly affected” its clients are. However, Read said that “at this point” it had “not seen any significant change in client spending”.
“We reiterate our full-year guidance which already reflected a challenging environment. As ever, we remain agile and vigilant and will continue to be disciplined on how we are managing our cost base,” Read said.
Split by function, WPP’s integrated agencies saw like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs down 2.8 per cent, with GroupM, down 0.9 per cent while other integrated agencies declined 4.4 per cent.
Its PR agencies were down 6.6 per cent while its specialist agencies grew 1.2 per cent.
By geography, North America was broadly flat at -0.1 per cent, while the UK was -5.5 per cent, Western Continental Europe -4.5 per cent and Rest of World -3.8 per cent, including growth of 5.5 per cent in India offset by a decline of -17.4 per cent in China.
