WPP chief upbeat on UK ad performance

The UK advertising and marketing sector is faring better than its US and Continental counterparts Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, said.

"The fiscal stimulus we have seen in this country must have some effect and may already have started to show last month," Sorrell explained.

"March was generally better than January and February everywhere. But whether that is a genuine improvement or just our clients restocking after a heavy period of destocking we have yet to see."

WPP's like-for-like revenues in the first quarter fell 5.8%, but last year's takeover of market research group Taylor Nelson Sofres meant revenues rose 36% to £2.12 billion.

Sorrell admitted his forecast that 2009 revenues would fall by just 2% had been overtaken and he accepted analysts' forecasts of a 5%-6% downturn with "the first half probably tougher than the second and a recovery of sorts, probably, in 2010".

Some 3,500 jobs went at WPP's offices in the first quarter and out of that, the proportion of redundancies rose sharply.

It was too early to predict the effect of swine flu, he said, but WPP's market research company in Mexico had stopped face-to-face interviews.

"Inevitably it will be yet another excuse for people weaseling out when they fail to make their forecasts," Sorrell added.