• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, November 6, 2013

Havas reported a 4% drop in reported revenue for the third quarter to $556 million. The company said organic revenue growth for the period was 1.2%.

For the first nine months Havas’ reported revenue totaled nearly $1.7 billion -- down about 1% with organic growth of 0.7%.

The company’s Q3 organic growth was on the low side compared to the other holding companies: WPP (5%);  Omnicom (4.1%); Publicis Groupe (3.5%); Interpublic (2.4%) and MDC Partners (9.3%).

North America appeared to be Havas’ weak link in Q3. The company issued a comment attributed to both Yannick Bollore, Chairman of Havas, and Global CEO David Jones indicating that “2013 has been a slow year [in North America]” after strong growth in the region the previous two years.

North American revenues were down 1.9% in the quarter and down 1.8% for the first nine months “mainly due to several one-off client losses at Arnold,” per the company.

The pair cited “strong growth in Europe” during the third quarter, while “the rest of the world continues to grow, particularly Latin America.”

The company reported net new business in Q3 of nearly $500 million, including Dish Network in North America, global media duties for Air Emirates and CRM work for Danone in Europe.