Publicis Groupe grew 7.1% organically in the second quarter, matching its Q1 performance and prompting the holding company to upgrade its growth guidance for the full year to 5%. That’s up from earlier guidance of 3% to 5%.  

Company shares were up nearly 4% in Thursday morning trading on the news. 

Q2 net revenue totaled 3.23 billion euros, up 5.4% and first half revenue was 6.3 billion euros, up 7.6%. 

Globally, data unit Epsilon grew 6.8% in Q2 and digital transformation services provider Publicis Sapient was up 5.5%. That was on top of double-digit growth for both divisions in Q2 2022.  

The company said that data & technology, media and creative each contributed one-third of the company's revenue. Media was up double digits while creative operations had low single-digit growth in the quarter.  

“The first half of the year has been strong for Publicis,” commented CEO Arthur Sadoun, adding that the 7.1% growth achieved in Q2 was “ahead of expectations after double-digit growth in 2022.” 

Organic growth in North America was 4.9%, with the U.S. achieving 5% and Canada, 2.2%. Publicis Sapient grew 5.1%, which the holding company noted was on top of 17% growth in the year-ago period. Slower growth was attributed in part to slower client decisions about digital transformation projects. Epsilon grew 6.9% organically in the region.  

Organic growth in Europe was 15.2% and 17% in the U.K. with double-digit growth in media and at Publicis Sapient.  

Latin America grew 5.9, Asia Pacific was up 2.6% and the Middle East & Africa grew by 6.5%.  

With its investments in Epsilon, Sapient and Marcel, the company is “uniquely positioned” said Sadoun. The industry’s future will “inevitably be shaped by data, tech and AI that are already at the heart of our business model both in how we work for our clients and in the way we operate.”