WPP Announces 2022 Preliminary Results

WPP has released its preliminary results for 2022, highlighting its strong performance driven by growth across all of its agencies.  

The results showed revenues rise from £12.8bn to £14.4bn in 2022 as the company signed up new clients including Danone, Nationwide and Verizon.

WPP said it was raising its final dividend by 30.5 per cent to 24.4p a share. Pre-tax profits rose from £951mn a year earlier to £1.16bn. Click here to view the full results.

Mark Read, chief executive officer, WPP, comments: “WPP delivered strong growth in 2022, despite the macro challenges, reflecting the priority placed by our clients on investing in communications, customer experience, commerce, data and technology.

“The competitiveness of our offer drove net new business of $5.9 billion in 2022, including new assignments with Audible, SC Johnson, and Verizon among many others and the quality of our work was recognised at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity where WPP was named Creative Company of the Year.

“Our transformation is now delivering measurable results. Over the past three years, WPP has grown like-for-like net sales at a compound average rate of 3.2%, including 3.3% in North America, while improving our headline operating profit margin by 40 basis points. Our adjusted net debt has declined from over £4 billion at the end of 2018 to £2.5 billion, while over £3.4 billion has been returned to shareholders via share buybacks and dividends.

“We enter 2023 in a strong financial position with good momentum from new business and the many opportunities ahead of us. While there will no doubt be challenges, the continued need for major companies to build brands, sell products, reinvent and transform their business, understand their data, invest in technology and exploit the potential of AI remains, as does their need for modern partners who can help them navigate this new world.”