Buoyant Ipsos Predicts EUR 1bn+ 2010 Revenues

Ipsos has reported a 27.9% increase in Q3 revenues to EUR 283.6m, compared with EUR 221.8m in the prior year period. The firm is already projecting that for the first time, annual revenues will exceed the one billion euros mark.

On a like-for-like basis and at constant exchange rates, revenues climbed 10.5%, following a 6% rise in the first quarter and 9.1% increase in the second. Ipsos says that this is the first time since the Q1 2007 that it has registered double-digit organic growth.

Revenues for the first nine months of 2010 totalled EUR 812.5m - up 21.4% from the same period in 2009.

For the first nine months of 2010, organic growth was 8.7%. The company claims that changes in activity had a positive impact of 6.4% which reflected 'strong performance' from recently acquired MRBI (Ireland) and OTX (US).

Trends by geographic area show growth across all regions, with emerging countries growing organically by 16.7%, three times faster than developed countries. Over the nine months, they represent 30% of Ipsos' revenues; close to North America (32%) and Western Europe (35%), the remaining 3% being achieved in Northern Asia.

All business lines contributed evenly to Ipsos' growth, except for Opinion and Social Research which had performed well in 2009. This activity is now adversely affected by spending cuts in the UK public sector in the UK.

As a result, Ipsos Public Affairs teams will make up for the expected decline of their activity in the UK by working more in other countries and with other clients.

Ipsos said in a statement that the market in 2010 has been 'more robust' than anticipated. The company is predicting that organic growth will reach the upper estimate released in July (of 6% to 8%) while the operating margin will be more than 10%, compared with 9.4% in 2009.

Web site: www.ipsos.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.