WPP CEO pledges overhaul after ‘unacceptable’ results; new strategy to focus on AI

WPP reported revenue of £3,259 million for the third quarter of 2025, reflecting an 8.4% year-on-year decline on a reported basis and a 3.5% decline like-for-like (LFL). Revenue less pass-through costs stood at £2,459 million, down 11.1% reported and 5.9% LFL, driven primarily by softer performance in its media business.

For the first nine months of 2025, WPP’s reported revenue reached £9,922 million, down 8.0% year-on-year, with revenue less pass-through costs declining 10.5% reported and 4.8% LFL. Based on year-to-date performance, the company expects full-year LFL revenue growth in revenue less pass-through costs between -5.5% and -6.0%, and a headline operating profit margin of around 13%.

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Cindy Rose, Chief Executive Officer of WPP, shared: “My ambition is for WPP to lead our industry in terms of innovation, client delivery and organic growth. However, I acknowledge that our recent performance is unacceptable and we are taking action to address this.”

Among business segments, Global Integrated Agencies recorded a 6.2% LFL decline in revenue less pass-through costs, led by a 5.7% drop in WPP Media and a 6.5% decline across other agencies. The Public Relations segment was down 5.9% LFL, while Specialist Agencies saw a smaller 2.2% decline.

Regionally, performance varied across markets. North America declined 6.0%, the UK fell 8.9%, and Western Continental Europe was down 4.4%. In the Rest of the World, revenue declined 5.0%, though results were mixed, with India growing 6.7% and China declining 10.6%.

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Rose further stated, “To deliver performance improvements, we will position our offering to be much simpler, more integrated, powered by data and AI, efficiently priced and designed to deliver growth and business outcomes for our clients. We will significantly improve our execution, strengthening our go-to-market and dramatically simplifying how we organise ourselves internally, as well as building a high-performance team culture. We will expand our addressable market by pushing harder into enterprise and technology solutions. And finally, we will take a disciplined approach to capital allocation with a focus on cost efficiency and maintaining a strong balance sheet while prioritising the parts of our business where we can deliver the greatest shareholder value.”