Omnicom fourth quarter profits drop 15%

By Staff, campaignlive.co.uk, Wednesday, 10 February 2010 01:10PM

NEW YORK - Omnicom has reported a 15.3% year-on-year decrease in net income for the fourth quarter of 2009 to $229.6m (£146.91m).

The holding company behind major ad networks DDB and BBDO reported its results today, three weeks ahead of WPP, its rival for the crown of the world's biggest marketing services company.

The hit to Omnicom's profits came after just a 3% drop in fourth quarter revenues to $3.27bn.

Growing revenues from outside the US overtook the group's domestic revenues during the quarter.

International revenues actually increased by 1.5% to $1.635bn while domestic revenues shrank 7.3% to $1.63bn.

For 2009 as a whole net income was down 20.7% to $793m and revenues were down 12.3% to $11.72bn.

Omnicom is led by chief executive John Wren and also owns media networks OMD and PHD.

Wins during the fourth quarter included PHD's capture of Unilever's $450m media account in China.

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk