Insight Growth Slow Despite WPP's Record £1bn Profit

Marcoms giant WPP has reported a 1.1% revenue increase in its Consumer Insight division; up from £2.43m in 2010 to £2.46m last year. Meanwhile, the group's pre-tax profits increased 18.5% to a record £1.01bn, as revenues climbed 7.4% to £10.02bn.

In the Consumer Insight business - which includes agencies TNS, Kantar, Millward Brown, Added Value, Cymfony, Compete, Lightspeed Research and IMRB - operating profit increased almost 10% to £258m, from £234.8m last year.

On a like-for-like basis, Consumer Insight revenues were up 0.8% with gross margin growth of 1.9%. The division accounted for 24.5% of group revenue in 2011, compared with 26% the previous year.

For 2012, WPP says it will continue to acquire businesses which focus on consumer insight, data analytics, and related areas of new technology, and has put aside around £300m for this purpose.

The company - which is led by Sir Martin Sorrell (pictured) and based in Dublin for tax purposes - currently employs more than 158,000 full-time staff (up approximately 12,000, from over 146,000 the previous year) in over 2,500 offices in 107 countries.

Web site: www.wpp.com .