Ipsos Q1 revenues down by 5.9%

Organic growth for the quarter was an improvement of Q1 2017’s growth of 1%, but weaker than the second half of 2017, the company said.

Ipsos blamed declining currencies including the US dollar, Japanese yen and the Chinese RMB, for reducing its revenues by 8%.

The company said in mid-2017 the gap was closing between stable revenue and an increase in the value of contracts sold, leading to a lag in the conversion of sales into revenue. 

New services (introduced from 2015 onwards) represent 13.9% of the company’s revenue compared with 12% in Q1 2017. These services have grown by 14% in the first quarter and by 27.5% in emerging markets. New services now represent 12.3% of the company’s overall performance in emerging countries.  

Ipsos also said that its transition to international financial reporting standards (IFRS) 15, a new standard relating to accounting for revenue from customer contracts, had an impact of +0.4% for organic growth.