Publicis continues its momentum and confirms its objectives after a good start to the year

Despite a difficult macroeconomic context, Publicis is making its way to very respectable revenues. The French communications giant confirmed its annual objectives on Thursday and revealed a solid first quarter result, with a 4.9% increase in revenues, driven by its technology subsidiaries despite a difficult macroeconomic context. The group therefore says it is confident in its ability to achieve growth in 2024 of between 4% and 5%. Growth can “reach the high range of 5% assuming a faster resumption of digital transformation projects among our clients, as well as fewer reductions in traditional advertising spending,” specifies a press release.

At constant exchange rates and scope, net income growth was 5.3%, a level well above analyst consensus. “It’s a sustained dynamic,” said Arthur Sadoun, chairman of the board of directors, during an exchange with the press. “Our performance has been above the market for four years now,” he added.

Also read: AI: Publicis invests 300 million to exploit its immense data repository

Publicis explains this performance by strong demand from its clients for solutions based on artificial intelligence, with the disappearance of “third-party cookies” at Google to target advertising on the internet. Its two technological subsidiaries, Epsilon and Publicis Sapient, specializing in the optimization of marketing data and the digital transformation of businesses, have made a significant contribution to the group's performance, particularly in the United States where the company recorded growth of 5 %.

Overall, activity is up in all regions, with a 6.1% increase in Europe, led by France which posted 9.4% growth, and a 6.7% jump in China . By comparison, British competitor WPP announced in February a net profit divided by six in 2023 due to reduced customer spending in “tech”. “We saw the same decline but it did not affect our performance that much because we had other growth levers,” underlined Arthur Sadoun, who now notes a rebound in investments in this sector.