WPP reported a 2024 net organic revenue decline of 1% and a fourth-quarter shortfall of 4.2%. 

The initial outlook for 2025: an organic decline of 2% albeit with some improvement in the second half. The organic figures exclude M&A and currency impact. 

Investors sent the stock down 15% on the London Exchange after the firm released the results Thursday morning. 

Total reported revenue for the full year was 14.7 billion GBP (approximately $18.6 billion) which was down 0.7% vs 2023. 

WPP is the last of the major holding companies to report full-year 2024 results. Earlier this month Publicis Groupe reported 5.8% growth for the year and Interpublic reported 0.2% growth. Omnicom reported 5.2% growth but its figures are based on gross revenue not net revenue (which it does not report). 

WPP CEO Mark Read stated, “We achieved significant progress against our strategy in 2024 with the creation of VML, Burson and the simplification of GroupM – some 70% of our business. We sold our stake in FGS Global to create significant value for shareholders. And we increased our margin, while stepping up our investment in AI through WPP Open, which is now used by 33,0006 people across WPP.” 

Read said Q4 was impacted by “weaker client discretionary spend.” On the positive side, he noted overall growth in the period from the company’s top-25 clients and improved new business with wins from Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark and Unilever.   

“The actions we are taking across WPP will strengthen our existing client relationships and drive our new business results,” said Read. “We expect some improvement in the performance of our integrated creative agencies [which were down collectively in 2024] in the year ahead. At the same time, we have comprehensive efforts underway to improve our competitive positioning through new leadership at GroupM, with further investment in AI, data and proprietary media.” 

At GroupM, Brian Lesser returned to the company last September as global CEO, succeeding Christian Juhl. Lesser in turn unveiled a new leadership structure last month that included the hiring of McKinsey veteran Emily Del Greco as global chief operating officer and Adam Gerhart, who moved to global chief client officer from global CEO of Mindshare. 

For full-year 2024 GroupM posted organic growth of 2.7% with 2.4% growth in the fourth quarter.