Havas reported weaker organic growth in the March quarter, with its North Amercian business in negative territory, when compared to a very strong performance in the same three month last year.
Overall revenue was up 3.5% to €611 million but organic growth was just 1.1% compared to the first quarter of 2022 with 11.4%.
Net revenue was up 4.4% to €588 million, and 1.9% organically.
However, Havas reported “strong commercial momentum” with significant budget gains.
The growth rates were below that reported by two other global advertising groups, Publicis and Omnicom.
Publicis reported better than expected March revenue of €3.458 billion, representing organic growth of 7.1% in the face of “challenging” economic conditions.
And Omnicom posted “solid” organic growth of 5.2% in the March quarter and was on track to hit full year targets of 3%-5% organic revenue growth
Vividendi, the owner of the global advertising group, says Havas was a major contributor to the media group’s 3.3% growth to €2.29 billion for the quarter.
In Europe, performance was satisfactory (+1.4%), with growth driven by almost all countries and activities.
Havas described net revenue in North America as "stable" at -0.3% organic due to project delays expected to materialise in the second half of 2023.
Asia-Pacific (+4%) and Latin America (+27.3%) continued to record very solid organic growth. India and China showed "significant" growth.
Since the start of 2023, Havas has continued a strong acquisition drive with two new agencies: HRZN, a German agency specialising in social media and content, and Noise Digital, a media performance and data analytics agency based in Vancouver.
Havas also entered a strategic partnership in the United States with Trinity Life Sciences, a global leader in life sciences solutions. The partnership includes Havas Health & You taking a minority stake in Trinity.
The company says client wins include Santander in Brazil, BMW in China and the global win of Danone announced in early April by the Havas Creative network and BETC.
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