Havas returns to global growth in Q1 2010

The company, led by Vincent Bolloré (pictured), has posted a 1.5 per cent year-on-year rise in organic growth for the first three months of the year, compared with an 8.4 per cent drop this time last year.

Latin America continued to be the best performing region, with organic growth of 24.4 per cent attributed to "excellent media activities".

North America, which contributes around 35 per cent of the total group revenue, also had a strong start to the year – up 5.2 per cent thanks in part to Euro RSCG winning business for Credit Suisse and Heineken. This was said to represent "a significant turnaround" in its biggest region, which had posted negative growth of 9.2 per cent for the corresponding period in 2009.

Following improved quarter-on-quarter earnings throughout 2009, Asia-Pacific saw a return to positive organic growth up 4.4 per cent compared with a slump of -24.7 per cent during the same period last year. This is attributed to good results in media and marketing businesses in China, India and Singapore.

In Europe, France, home to Havas HQ and the group's second-largest market worth approximately 20 per cent of total revenue, returned to organic growth of 0.5 per cent, largely driven by its Havas Media activities. This compares with a fall of 6.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2009.

The outlook was also reported to have improved in the rest of Europe, with Italy and Germany also returning to growth.

However, the UK, Havas' third-largest market and worth around 15 per cent of total business, continued to post a decline (-1.5 per cent), although considerably improved on the -14.3 per cent slump in Q4.

Other European markets that continued to be down year-on-year include Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Poland and Hungary.

Hervé Philippe, chief financial officer at Havas Group, said: "These are better than expected results. At the end of February we were advising analysts that globally our performance will be close to zero.

"But a good month in March has resulted in 1.5 per cent growth for the quarter. Particularly strong areas of growth have been experienced in Latin America, led by Brazil, and North America."