WPP buoyed by rising advertising spend across US & UK
WPP, the world’s largest advertising company, is continuing to grow on the back of healthy advertising spend by clients in both the US and UK.
Buoyed by one-off events including the Summer Olympics in Rio and the US presidential election, WPP posted like-for-like sales growth of 5.1 per cent over the first quarter, a slight dip on the 5.2 per cent recorded a year earlier. Net new business came in at $1.78bn for the period, a 78 per cent increase.
For the year as a whole revenue growth is anticipated to exceed three per cent.
The results bear out chief executive's Sir Martin Sorrell’s decision to focus firepower on digital operations amidst the long-term decline of traditional advertising with the US and UK proving to be particular bright spots.
In America, revenues jumped 6.9 per cent $1.73bn whilst sales in Britain lifted 4.7 per cent. Across Western Europe as a whole sales growth of 4.4 per cent is expected.