• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, February 13, 2020

Dentsu executives are probably glad to have 2019 behind them. The company posted a 1% organic revenue decline for full-year 2019.

Net revenues were up just 0.7% and net profit plunged nearly 22%.

Regionally, the Americas remained the company’s best-performing region, with 2.4% organic growth, while Asia Pacific sank 12.3%. The Europe, Middle East and Africa region was down 0.7%.

The company cited a handful of markets that put a damper on growth, including Australia, Brazil, China, France and the UK. Earlier, the company confirmed it was cutting 3% of its workforce (1,400 jobs), largely impacting those markets and a few others, but not the Americas.

Dentsu CEO Toshihiro Yamamoto stated he was “confident the restructuring of the international business will deliver the necessary savings and changes to our organizational structure we need to deliver growth and margin improvement in 2020 and beyond.”

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo should also help.

The company said the games and other big events would help drive a targeted 2.9% increase in net revenues for full-year 2020. However, no guidance was provided for organic growth.