First quarter revenues at global advertising and communications group, WPP, dropped by 3.9% to £908.5 million, slightly ahead of analysts’ expectations.
The regional variations showed North America up by 1.4% in constant currencies, whilst in Europe, the UK was down 3.5% and continental Europe up 3.5%. Revenues from the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East regions rose by 3.6%.
Looking at the figures by discipline, advertising and media revenues rose by 3.1%; information, insight and consultancy was up 4.6%; PR dropped by 3.0% and branding and identity, healthcare and specialist communications dropped by 1.7%.
The figures show a decreasing rate of decline in WPP’s revenues, in a trend which began at the beginning of last year and has continued through the first quarter of 2003.
In North America, revenues have shown the second consecutive quarter of growth, indicating that the conditions there are gently starting to firm up. It is likely that the UK will show the same trends, after a certain amount of lag; the UK is currently still fairly weak.
Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP’s chief executive and respected market caller, reportedly told CNBC today that he is seeing significant signs of stabilisation. This year is still expected to be difficult, he says, but the trends are now encouraging.
This is the first time that Sorrell has delivered an outlook which intimates that a recovery may now be underway. He has previously been resolute in saying that a recovery will not emerge before 2004.
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