LONDON: The planet's nine largest international marketing services groups increased their aggregated revenues by 9.11% in 2005, according to the annual financial performance survey by UK accountancy group Willott Kingston Smith.
'Nine tailors make a man', according to the 17th century proverb. Likewise, it seems, did nine ad and media shops fashion global advertising last year. They are Aegis, Cossette, Dentsu, Hakuhodo, Havas, Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP.
Of that nonary, Aegis and WPP led the field with double-digit growth.
Driven by the rise in gross income, combined operating profits grew 4.9%. But margins slipped from 12.42% to 11.94%. The bean-counters noted, however, that if Interpublic's performance was excluded from the calculations, averaged margins would have improved from 13.7% to 14.3%.
Productivity too is on the up. With Japanese groups Hakuhodo and Dentsu leading the way, average revenue per staff member rose from €110,362 ($145,258; £74,568) to €111,858.
Data sourced from mandmeurope.com; additional content by WARC staff
