London: WPP, the world’s largest ad group, cut its outlook for the second quarter in a row on Thursday, saying it now expected like-for-like growth this year to be 0.5-1.0 per cent, as big tech client continued in rein in marketing spend.
“Our top-line performance in Q3 was below our expectations and continued to be impacted by the cautious spending trends we saw in Q2, particularly across technology clients with more impact from this felt in GroupM over the summer than the first half,” CEO Mark Read said.
Like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs in the third quarter declined by 0.6 per cent, missing consensus of 1.0 per cent growth.
WPP said growth in UK, Western Continental Europe and Rest of World was offset by declines in North America, with continued weakness from technology clients, and in China.
