Ipsos sees first quarter revenue rise 9.8%

Revenue for the first three months of the year was €260.1m, with organic growth of 6.2% and positive exchange rate effects of 3.5%.

EMEA revenue grew 3% to €116.9, the Americas saw revenue climb 13% to €115.1m while Asia Pacific was up 29% to €28.1m.

Marketing research remained the firm’s dominant area of activity with sales up 16% to €119.4m. Advertising research revenue increased 10% to €57.5m, media research was up 16.5% to €29.5m and customer and employee relationship management grew 6% to €24.7m.

The only business line to post a decrease was opinion and social research, which saw revenue fall 12% to €29.1m.

Ipsos said: “With the standard caveat of assuming that the environment in which Ipsos operates is not – for one reason or another – further destabilised, we believe that we are in a position to confirm our targets for 2011 both in terms of organic growth – greater than that of the market as a whole, which is estimated to be over 5% – and operating margin, which we expect to beat the record level of 2010 and to be at least 11%.”