• April 25, 2006

Omnicom Group, the world's largest agency holding company, reported stronger than expected first quarter profits, and organic revenue growth that outpaced results for Publicis Groupe and WPP Group. Omnicom said net income rose 10 percent to $165.7 million, while worldwide revenue rose 6.7 percent to $2.563 billion. Organic revenues rose 8.7 percent. Traditional advertising services remained Omnicom's largest sector, accounting for 43.1 percent of first quarter revenues, but lost share relative to other marketing services, especially CRM. Advertising related revenues rose only 5.2 percent during the quarter, while CRM grew 10.0 percent and "specialty" services jumped 7.1 percent. PR was the weakest sector, rising just 1.4 percent. Omnicom's results come on the heels of WPP's first quarter release last week, which reported organic growth of nearly 5 percent. WPP said specialty services including direct, Internet and interactive were its fastest growing - rising nearly 23 percent - followed by advertising and media investment management, which rose 19 percent. Although WPP does not break out media buying as a discrete sector, it said it "continues to show the strongest growth of all our communications services functions, with direct, Internet and interactive and healthcare communications growing at almost double-digits, on a like-for-like basis."