PUBGY - Publicis Groupe S.A. (PUBGY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-02-08 18:46:03 ET
Publicis Groupe S.A. (PUBGY)
Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
February 08, 2024 3:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Arthur Sadoun - Chairman of Management Board & CEO
Michel-Alain Proch - CFO & Member of Management Board
Conference Call Participants
Meyer Shields - KBW
Nicolas Langlet - BNP Paribas
Laura Metayer - Morgan Stanley
Adam Berlin - UBS
Adrien de Saint Hilaire - Bank of America
Lisa Yang - Goldman Sachs
Julien Roch - Barclays
Christophe Cherblanc - Societe Generale
Conor O'Shea - Kepler Cheuvreux
Tom Singlehurst - Citi
Presentation
Arthur Sadoun
Bonjour and welcome to Publicis Groupe 2023 full year result call. I am Arthur Sadoun and I'm here in Paris with Michel-Alain Proch, our CFO; Anne-Gabrielle Heilbronner, our Secretary General.
In the room today, you also have Jean-Michel Bonamy, who will be available to answer your question offline after the session.
I will start this call by sharing the main highlights of 2023 which is another record year for the group. Michel-Alain will then take you through the details of our number. After that, I will conclude with the reason why we are confident in delivering another strong year in 2024. Finally, as always, we will take all of your questions together.
But before we start, please take the time to read the disclaimer which is an important legal matter.
Okay. Let's get into the presentation. In reality, there is just one single highlight to take out of last year. In a very challenging macroeconomic context for our clients and after 6 years of transformation, Publicis extracted itself from the pack in 2023.
With 6.3% organic growth, not only are we outperforming our holding company peers by 500 basis points in net revenue, but we are also growing at double the rate of the main IT consulting firms. And what is true for organic growth is also true for our financial KPIs, be it margin or free cash flow.
At the moment, where our clients need partner that truly help them transform in a challenging and ever-changing context, our unique model has made the difference and allowed us to significantly gain market share.
Let me give you an overview of our numbers, starting with organic growth. We achieved plus 6.3% in 2023, after 2 years at double-digit, with a stronger-than-expected finish to the year at plus 5.7% in Q4. We already shared some of those numbers when we released our AI plan 2 weeks ago. But let me recap a few important points.
Thanks to our unique go-to-market in media and our balanced revenue mix, we were able to deliver a strong and consistent performance above expectations. Media, 1/3 of our revenue grew double digits in 2023 for the third year in a row. This was led by both market share gains and organic growth at existing clients. And it actually accelerated in Q4 with a faster ramp-up of new business.
Data and tech, another 1/3 posted a very solid year overall. Epsilon was up plus 10%, and Publicis Sapient up plus 3% organically on the top of plus 12% and plus 19%, respectively, in 2022.
In Q4, we saw the same trends as in Q3. On the one hand, a very high demand for first-party data and marketing transformation, resulting in double-digit growth at Epsilon. On the other hand, as expected, delays in business transformation project, like all other IT consulting peers, leading to a slight decline in organic growth at Publicis Sapient....
Publicis Groupe S.A. (PUBGY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript