WPP, the world’s largest advertising and PR network, today reported an annual profit of £1.008 bn, representing not only an unprecedented 18.5 percent rise on 2010’s results, but the first time the communications leviathan has broken the £1bn profit mark – and WPP say they expect their revenue to increase in 2012.
A spokesman for Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, said that 2011 had been “a record…on virtually whatever measure you care to name”. WPP made 90 percent of its profits overseas, with the emerging markets in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific seeing revenue growth of 12 percent or more. With the exception of the UK, however, WPP struggled slightly in Western Europe for most of 2011, with a slight improvement in Q4. In an interview with BBC Radio 4 on Thursday morning, Sorrell stated that the growth of digital advertising had also played its part in their phenomenal growth figures, and that 30 percent of WPP’s business was now strictly digital.
He was also “delighted” to reveal that he was very much committed to moving WPP back from Dublin, in recognition of the corporation tax reductions announced in last year’s budget. WPP moved their headquarters from London in 2008, prompted by corporation tax increases in the UK and a 12.5 percent equivalent rate in Ireland.
The WPP chief went on to state that 2012 would almost certainly see a further increase in profits as a result of the impending London Olympics and the US Presidential election.
