WPP sales down again despite uptick in new business
WPP saw its revenue fall by more than six per cent in the first three months of 2026, piling pressure on the advertising giant’s turnaround plan just two months after it was unveiled.
The FTSE 250 holding group saw its sales fall by 6.6 per cent to £3bn in the first quarter, while revenue less pass-through costs, a metric used by professionals services firms that strip out costs on behalf of client, fell by more than eight per cent.
New chief executive Cindy Rose said she was “encouraged by [the] momentum” the firm was showing two months after she unveiled the holding company’s root and branch turnaround plan, dubbed Elevate 28.
“While it is only a few months since we unveiled our Elevate28 strategy, I am encouraged by this momentum which validates the ‘Stabilisation’ phase of the plan and our path to growth,” she said.
“Consistent organic growth remains our North Star. While it will take time to outpace historical losses, our Q1 results are in line with expectations and ahead of Q4 2025.”
The holding group also warned that the war in the Middle East had weighed on its operations in the region, where at 12.6 per cent sales fell the most of any of its core geographies.
WPP said clients were cutting back on spending in the region as a result of “geopolitical tensions”.
Overall the results were in line with expectations and beat its fourth quarter performance, it said, and were carried higher by a recent run of high-profile client wins. The ad group added beauty giant Estee Lauder to its global media roster, and notched up other pitch wins from Wendy’s and Mr Muscle-maker SC Johnson.
In the overhaul announced in February, Rose revealed plans to make £500m of cost savings by the end of 2028 in a bid to strip back the business to a core focus on media and advertising. The balance sheet simplification would be done via a combination of eliminating duplication, staff cuts and simplifying its portfolio of agencies, the holding company said.
WPP unveils £500m cost saving plan
Since then, it has emerged that WPP has appointed investment bankers to explore the sale of its premier public relations agency, Burson, which was only formed in 2024, when it merged Burson Coln Wolfe with its PR stablemate Hill and Knowlton in 2024.
Rose has vowed to reinvest the proceeds from the cost saving programme into avenues for growth identified by the holding company, chief among which is its fledgling artificial intelligence platform, WPP Open.
The group did not confirm any asset disposals in its trading update on Tuesday, but said it “continued to make progress on potential asset disposals and will provide updates in due course”.
The turnaround plan come after a years-long spell of underperformance from the advertising giant, which last year dropped out of the FTSE 100 index having been one of its largest companies less than 10 years ago.
The rise of artificial intelligence and big technology firms’ increasingly firm grip on the media buying industry has spawned several years of flat performance, culminating in the company losing its crown as the world’s largest holding group to France’s Publicis.