WPP has slashed its full-year steering for 2025, citing weaker consumer spend and decrease web new enterprise in a shock earnings name.
In an unscheduled H1 replace, chief govt (CEO) Mark Learn instructed buyers: “For the reason that begin of the yr, we’ve confronted a difficult buying and selling surroundings with macro pressures intensifying and decrease web new enterprise.”
He added: “Whereas we anticipated the second quarter to be just like the primary quarter, efficiency in June was worse than anticipated, and we anticipate this sample of buying and selling within the first half to proceed into the second half.
The Numbers
3% to five% — How a lot WPP now expects income, much less pass-through prices, to say no in 2025. It is a drop from its earlier forecast predicting a decline between 0 to 2%.
4.2% to 4.5% — WPP’s predicted drop in first half revenues, with a steeper “below-expectations decline” of 5.5% to six% within the second quarter.
17.1% — The quantity the London advert community’s share worth tumbled on the information on the time of publication.
$544 million to $578 million (£400 million to £425 million) — Predicted headline working revenue for the primary half of 2025, owing to decrease revenues and severance motion at WPP Media.
Watercooler Speak
Learn, who will step down as WPP CEO in December after seven years, made the weird transfer of delivering a buying and selling replace 4 weeks earlier than the corporate’s deliberate Q2 outcomes on August 7.
In a Q&A name joined by ADWEEK, Learn stated WPP’s points have primarily been with WPP Media, which rebranded and undertook an unspecified variety of layoffs earlier this yr. He additionally stated Ogilvy had been impacted by “project-related” work.
The CEO added that there was “extra stress on the highest line” from “cautious purchasers,” which was resulting in “fewer, smaller alternatives” for WPP. Learn didn’t point out how President Trump’s tariffs had affected WPP’s efficiency.
The U.Ok.-headquartered holdco has suffered a number of important consumer losses this yr by the hands of French rival Publicis Groupe, which toppled its crown because the world’s largest advert community by revenues in January.
Since then, WPP has misplaced Coca-Cola’s $700 million North America media enterprise to rival Publicis, chipping away at its $4 billion relationship with the beverage large.
Initially of June, Paramount dropped WPP Media after twenty years of working collectively and employed Publicis. This alteration was not the results of a assessment and reportedly shocked many. A couple of weeks later, the corporate misplaced out on Mars’ $1.7 billion media assessment with the transient as soon as once more transferring to Publicis.
Wins in H1 embody Heineken’s international shopper advertising and commerce account, and Levi’s naming Burson its company communications company of file within the U.S.
WPP’s chief monetary officer (CFO), Joanne Wilson, admitted the Coca-Cola hit had already impacted the enterprise in Q2.
On the investor name, Learn stated WPP had factored in that the Mars loss would affect Q1 2026, however “selections made by the consumer” meant it might additionally now affect This fall of 2025.
Wilson stated WPP’s headcount of 108,000 dropped 3.5% within the first half of 2024, marking the lack of round 3,800 roles.
Key Quote
Amid WPP’s challenges, Learn has been upping funding in WPP’s AI and knowledge capabilities, buying knowledge clear room platform InfoSum and spending £300 million yearly on proprietary AI device WPP Open.
Wilson instructed buyers to anticipate extra of the identical within the second half of the yr: “We’re persevering with to take a position selectively within the enterprise of that concentrate on WPP Media and WPP Open, and it’s our intention to proceed to do this via the second half.”
The seek for Learn’s successor continues.
