Indiantelevision.com Team

(31 July 2006 2:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Global advertising and communications services group Havas has reported that revenue for the fierst half of this year is Eur 719 million, up 2.8% on first half of last year.

After a slight downturn in the first quarter at -2.4 per cent on like for like exchange rates and scope of consolidation, Q2 showed an improvement with organic growth at 2.5 per cent.

Net new business was Eur 900 million for the first half, compared to Eur 490 million in the fuirst half of last year. This does not include the recent win of the Reckitt Benckiser account announced on June 30th, the impact of which will be reflected in third quarter announcement.

In France the firm saw organic growth of 2.6 per cent. Business recovered in the second quarter after a slight downturn in the first qyarter. the improvement was thanks largely to corporate communication, marketing services and media consulting.

In the UK, organic growth fell by one per cent. Corporate communication made a satisfactory performance, holding business activity in the region steady after a slight drop in the first quarter.

In the Asia-Pacific region, organic growth fell by 4.8 per cent. After a dip in the first quarter due to the loss of the Intel account organic growth for the second quarter stabilised.

The main accounts won in the second quarter included News Magazine (Great Britain), Granini (Spain), NTV (Germany), Radio Mitre (Argentina), Telmex (Mexico), Hutchison Telecom (Australia) in in traditional advertising. In media, it bagged the accounts of Veolia Environnement (pan-European), Hotel.com and Garlik (Great Britain), Celebrity Cruises (USA), webmotors (Brazil) and the Chivas Regal, Martell among others.