Publicis reports 3% revenue growth for Q3 to €1,675m as Maurice Levy describes Omnicom merger as "a new page of history"
Global marketing group Publicis has reported revenue of €1,675m for its third quarter as CEO Maurice Levy has said that its planned merger agreement with Omnicom is on track and set to "write a new page of history".
The company, which owns agencies such as Zenith Optimedia, DigitasLBi and Fallon, saw reported growth of 3 per cent and organic growth of 3.5 per cent during the last quarter, and has also reported revenue of €5,026 for its three quarters of the year so far. This included reported growth of 6.7 per cent and organic growth of 3.3 per cent.
Organic growth in Europe for third quarter was up by 0.4 per cent and reported growth increased by 9.3 per cent during third quarter as revenue reached €469m, however reported growth in Mexico, Indonesia, Singapore, South Africa and Turkey fell by 1.4 per cent and by 5.2 per cent across the rest of the world.
Publicis also revealed that by the end of the three month period, on 30 September, its digital activities accounted over over a third (37.6 per cent) of its revenue, growing from 33.3 per cent during the same period last year.
Digital revenue grew organically by 12.3 per cent during the third quarter and by 11.5 per cent during the first three quarters.
"As the analog market shrinks, our strategy of focusing development in the digital sector has continued to prove being right," he commented before lauding the new business performance across the group, which was worth $3.4bn in total.
He then turned his attention to discuss the planned merger, stating; "Everything is going to plan, with special mention regarding the filing with the competition authorities, an arduous task well handled by the teams of both groups," and he revealed that the at company's AG, the board passed the entire set of resolutions outlined to them.
"I have to say that their unanimous approval of the proposed merger is an extremely interesting and positive indication of their support for this project.
We will, of course, have to reach crucial milestones in the weeks and months to come, but we are on the right track."
Levy also sounded caution for the fourth quarter of the year, describing it as an "unpredictable" and "volatile" period.
"Caution is required particularly since the global economic situation has come under the threat of government shutdown in the USA. We are nonetheless confident about 2013, confident about our growth and margin performance, and confident about the new page of history we will be writing with our merger of equals alongside Omnicom.”
Earlier this week, Omnicom reported a fall of 3.9 per cent in net income to 196m for the third quarter, although it also saw a growth in revenue of 3.2 per cent domestically and 1.6 per cent globally.