Publicis grows 4.9% in Q1; says new business streak will ‘offset’ Trump tariff fallout

Publicis Groupe is holding firm on its growth forecast for 2025 as it said its strong new-business record in Q1 will mean it can ride out the impact of president Donald Trump’s US trade tariffs.

Net revenues increased 4.9% on an organic basis to €3.54 billion ($4 billion) in the first three months of the year. Reported revenues, which includes the uplift from a string of recent acquisitions, were up 9.4%.

Arthur Sadoun, the chief executive, admitted macroeconomic conditions were “deteriorating”, after Trump announced global tariffs at the start of April that led to major stock market falls around the world.

However, Sadoun insisted he remained “extremely confident” that Publicis would hit its own 2025 revenue forecast of 4% to 5% growth, first announced in February, partly because of what he said were a dozen “material” new-business wins during Q1 that should flow through later in the year.

The French agency group won some major pieces of business, including Coca-Cola’s US media account and Santander’s global integrated account in a consolidation, in Q1. Other recent wins have included LinkedIn’s global media and Monzo’s creative and media in the UK.

Publicis said March was its strongest month in the quarter, which suggests that client confidence did not suffer in the run-up to Trump’s long-awaited “Liberation Day” announcement about tariffs on  April 2.

Sadoun maintained it was still “too early” to know how tariffs might affect client spend because of the fast-changing situation. It has been a “crazy” period, Sadoun said, referring to the way that Trump had announced sweeping tariffs, then paused many of them for 90 days and added an exemption for smartphones from China. 

Publicis still expects Q2 revenue growth to be “within” its annual forecast range of 4% to 5%.

Sadoun said, “We kick-started 2025 with a record new-business run, with a dozen material wins across diverse sectors, geographies and expertise. This performance, placing us at the top of the [JP Morgan new-business] rankings once again, will allow us to offset the potential effects of the deteriorating macroeconomic context. It makes us extremely confident in delivering our 4%-5% organic growth guidance for the year.”

A geographical breakdown for Q1 showed that APAC was up 4.8%;  North America was up 4.8%, with the US up 4.1%, Europe was up 2.7%, with the UK up 1.9% and France down 4.5%.

The US and the UK saw broadly similar trends across the group’s three main revenue lines. There was growth in Connected Media (representing 60% of revenue), which includes Publicis Media, Epsilon and influencer, and in Intelligent Creativity (25%), which includes the creative agencies, production and public relations, but there was a decline in Technology (15%), which includes Sapient.

Publicis was also busy with M&A in Q1, making €500 million ($566 million) of acquisitions, including Lotame, a data business, and BR Media Group, a Latin American-based influencer marketing company, following other big acquisitions such as Influential and Mars United Commerce during 2024.

Looking ahead, Publicis said: “Thanks to several material account wins in the first quarter, the Groupe expects to offset the potential impact of the uncertain macro environment and is well on track to deliver its 4% to 5% organic growth guidance for the full year of 2025.”

Growth should be “well balanced” between the first and second halves of the year, the company said, reiterating profit margin is expected to rise slightly above 18%.

Publicis has been the best-performing agency group since the pandemic and is the second agency group to publish Q1 results after Havas said it grew 2.1%.

Omnicom, which is awaiting regulatory approvals in the US, the UK and Europe to complete its acquisition of Interpublic, reports its results later on April 15.

IPG and WPP both warned at the start of the year that they expected revenues to decline in 2025, prior to Trump’s announcement on tariffs.

Like other agency groups, Publicis has seen its stock price slump since the start of 2025, dropping as much as a quarter from a near-record high of €103 ($117) to a low of €76 ($86) in early April, before recovering some ground. Publicis’ shares rose about 2% to €86 ($97) in early trading, following its Q1 results.