WPP posts small revenue gain for Q1 2021
WPP plc has reported a 1.8% increase in revenue for the three months to 31 March, compared to the corresponding period in 2020.
The group recorded a quarterly revenue of GBP 2.897 billion (USD$4.039 billion).
The group’s financial results also stated that USD$1.3 billion net new business was won during the quarter. Excluding the impact of acquisitions and disposals, like-for-like growth was 3.1%.
The shareholders of WPP AUNZ voted in favour of the takeover bid from WPP last week meaning the global company will become the sole owner of the local agency holding group, acquiring the remaining 38.5% of shares in the company it did not previously own. at $0.70 per share, WPP AUNZ had an implied enterprise value of $717 million.
VMLY&R was the “best performer” of the global integrated agencies. Meanwhile GroupM has “recovered strongly”, with like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs up 5.8%. GroupM also contributed to the Asia Pacific results, where China recovered “very strongly”, after the significant impact of COVID-19 in the comparative period.
According to the report, Wunderman Thompson’s performance significantly improved quarter-on-quarter, returning to growth in the first quarter of the year. Of the other integrated agencies, Ogilvy and AKQA Group showed an improved performance compared with the fourth quarter of 2020, but were still down year-on-year.
The group reportedly achieved like-for-like growth in 15 of its top 20 countries. The AUNZ WPP operations reported a first quarter result of $144 million, a 5.2% drop on the previous corresponding period.
WPP CEO Mark Read said: “WPP has had a strong start to the year with a return to growth in all business lines and most major markets.
“We have already secured a number of important assignments in 2021, including Absolut (global creative), JP Morgan Chase (global media), Salesforce (technology operations) and Sam’s Club (US creative).
“We are making good progress on our transformation programme, which will deliver significant efficiencies to reinvest in growth, and are confident of delivering our growth and profitability guidance for 2021.”
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Olivia Kruimel is the managing editor at Mumbrella. She has more than 15 years of experience in journalism, communications and marketing. Her journalism career began at Fairfax Media (now part of Nine) and includes various B2B publications such as B&T, Travel Today and ALB. As a marketer Olivia has worked for Standard Chartered and various global law firms.
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