Publicis Groupe: First-half 2009 results

As expected, the global recession has made things worse for an advertising industry already faced with declining business. The falloff in advertising spending worldwide is estimated at between 13% and 15% for the first half of the year. Even so, we did better than the market in the second quarter, with digital, healthcare, and emerging markets driving our revenue. We ended the first half with organic growth down 6.6% (down 5.4% excluding the impact of GM), a result that clearly reflects our expanding market share.