Peak Sorrell

3 March 2017 By Liam Proud Follow @liamwardproud

The advertising group, despite being in more than 100 countries, expects revenue to increase less than global GDP in 2017. Losing a couple of big accounts like AT&T and VW help explain it. But the media business faces structural threats, and WPP’s margin growth has a ceiling.

This content is for Subscribers only

Context News

WPP expects 2 percent like-for-like revenue growth in 2017, compared with 3 percent in 2016, it said on March 3, because of “tepid economic growth and recent weaker comparative net new business trends”.

WPP’s net sales, a revenue figure that strips out some payments where the company is merely a middleman, grew 3.1 percent on a like-for-like basis in 2016 to 12.4 billion pounds, above company-supplied consensus forecasts of just over 12.3 billion pounds.

The company has had a “relatively slow start to 2017”, it added, with like-for-like net sales in January up by 1.2 percent.

WPP shares were down 5.9 percent to 17.98 pounds at 0830 GMT.

Email a friend

Please complete the form below.

Required fields *