Ipsos revenue down 4.3% in 2013

The decline reflects the impact of exchange rates, as “the vast majority of currencies” devalued themselves against the euro, the company said. It also includes the group’s “partial withdrawal” from peripheral eurozone countries like Greece and Portugal, and the sale of its Los Angeles-based Motion Picture Group to private investors, which reduced “the scope of activity by 0.7%”.

Organic growth across the group as a whole was 0.8%, thanks to 1% increases in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Americas.

However, on a reported basis, EMEA revenue was down 2.1% to €752.2m, Americas revenue was down 4.7% to €675.6m, and Asia-Pacific revenue fell 8.8% to €284.6m.

Of its five distinct business lines, only media research showed reported growth – up 0.7% to €169.7m. Advertising research was down 3.3% to €274.5m, marketing research was down 6% to €891m, opinion and social research declined by 3.7% to €152m, while customer relationship management and research fell 2.7% to €225.2m.

But despite the revenue declines, operating margin improved by 0.6 percentage points to 10.6%, and operating profit increased 2.1% to €182.1m.

Pictured is Ipsos CEO Didier Truchot.

• In other news, Ipsos announced yesterday a partnership with comScore, which fuses data from the former’s survey of affluent consumers to the latter’s Media Metrix data, in order to help marketers understand and better target these individuals.