WPP’s Australian performance has now recorded six consecutive quarters of organic revenue decline, as it posts a 7.9% fall for the first quarter of 2026.

The world’s largest advertising holding company has seen a sustained decline in organic growth in Australia since the fourth quarter of 2024, with the local decline spiking at 8.5% in the third quarter last year.

WPP’s local Q1 results contrast sharply with those of Publicis Group, which recently flagged Australia as a global star performer having posted 7.6% organic growth during the same period.

Despite the continued decline, WPP’s Australian operations have secured recent new business wins, including media accounts for BYD in the current quarter and Suncorp in the previous period, while its public relations arm has added Airbnb as a client.

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Released overnight, WPP’s global performance was also subdued, with a 4.0% like-for-like organic decline and a 6.7% fall in revenue less pass-through costs, to £2.2b (A$4.3b).

Speaking on a webcast, WPP CFO Joanne Wilson said the group continues to expect a full-year headline operating profit margin in the range of 12% to 13%.

On the media business, she said WPP had made “great progress” on improving the competitiveness of its proposition, adding that it was resonating with both existing and new clients. “The real lead indicator in that is our new business and also our client retentions,” she said. Wilson also pointed to internal changes, saying the media leadership team had been “incredibly focused on building a much more effective and much more agile operating model.”

During the webcast, Wilson did not comment on reports that WPP is in the process of offloading its PR network, Burson.

Global CEO Cindy Rose did not appear on the webcast, but said in a statement that she was “encouraged” by early momentum under the company’s Elevate28 strategy, adding that it validated the “stabilisation” phase of the plan, which will focus on saving £500 million (A$949 million) over the next three years.

Meanwhile, fellow holding company Omnicom Group,  reporting its first quarterly results since completing its merger with Interpublic Group at the end of last year,  posted 3.9% organic growth globally.

Omnicom reported Asia-Pacific revenue of US$503.5m (A$700m for the quarter, but did not disclose organic growth performance for the region.

The addition of Interpublic Group added a further $2.6b to Omnicom’s total of $6.2b in revenue compared to the prior year period.

The group incurred $59.4m in integration and transaction costs related to the deal, alongside $4.1m in repositioning costs and a $34.3m loss on planned dispositions following completion of the acquisition.

Brands merged or axed since the deal’s closure include DDB and Mullenlowe, which are being folded into TBWA globally, with the former merging with Clemenger BBDO in Australia.

Omnicom also recently flagged changes in its experiential division, announcing the sale of Jack Morton to The Riverside Company’s Impact XM.

Speaking on Omnicom’s Q1 earnings webcast, CEO John Wren said the group remained “very healthy in terms of competition” and continued to win “its fair share of new business,” noting this was strong performance given it was integrating two large organisations in a short period of time.

“We’re functioning very well,” he said. “If there’s an underlying trend that’s out there, it’s really clients… becoming more focused on selecting a single provider to take care of most of their needs.”