Credit: Clarisse Croset via Unsplash
WPP, posting its March quarter results, said it had seen no “significant change” in ad spend despite a challenging business environment.
The global advertising group posted a string of negative numbers for the three months, with revenue less pass-through costs down 2.7% to £2.482 billion.
The company noted “elevated macro uncertainty” but said its performance is consistent with expectations.
WPP reiterated its flat to -2% full year guidance.
“We continue to make solid progress on our strategic priorities,” said CEO Mark Read.
“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. “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% 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.
“While WPP is not itself directly affected by tariffs, they will impact a number of our clients as well as the broader economy.
“At this point we have not seen any significant change in client spending and 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.”
In the regions, North America fell 0.1%, with continued pressure on project-based work, in particular at AKQA. However, region benefited from better spend in Tech & Digital Services across media and production and a more robust performance in Healthcare.
The UK dropped 5.5% against +0.3% in the same quarter last year, with pressure on project-based spend, particularly in Healthcare and Automotive, offsetting more robust trends in CPG.
Western Continental Europe saw a broad-based decline (-4.5%) against the toughest comparison from 2024 (Q1 2024: +3.3%). Spain remains a relative outperformer, down slightly against a strong double-digit comparison.
Rest of World fell 3.8%, driven primarily by Asia Pacific, down 5.7%. India grew 5.5% but China fell 17.4%.
Latin America fell -1.6% and Middle East & Africa -1.9%. Central & Eastern Europe continued to grow (+2.0%).
WPP's overview of operations:
Global Integrated Agencies: GroupM saw a like-for-like (LFL) decline in revenue less pass-through costs of 0.9% (Q1 2024: +2.4%), with growth in the US offset by the impact of client assignment losses from prior years in the UK and Europe and continued weakness in China.
Other Global Integrated Agencies declined 4.4% LFL (Q1 2024: -3.3%), impacted by continued pressure on project-based work, which weighed particularly on AKQA in the quarter, as well as tough comparisons at Ogilvy. Against this, Hogarth saw a return to high single-digit growth supported by the continued rebound in spend by technology clients.
Public Relations: Revenue less pass-through costs were down 39.5% driven by the disposal of FGS Global which completed in the December quarter 2024. On a LFL basis, Burson saw a broadly similar trend to Q4 with revenue less pass-through costs down in the mid to high single digits as the business continued to face a challenging environment for client discretionary spending, in particular in Europe. WPP is encouraged by improved new business momentum in the March quarter, in particular in the US.
Specialist Agencies: CMI Media Group, the specialist healthcare media planning and buying agency, continued to grow strongly, building on double-digit growth in 2024. Landor, Design Bridge and Partners, and a number of smaller specialist agencies, while still affected by delays in project-based spending, saw a more moderated rate of decline. Overall Specialist Agencies saw growth of 1.2% (Q1 2024: -7.6%).
Financial overview, March quarter 2025
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