WPP Share Price Decline Deepens as Revenue and Profits Slide

The WPP share price decline has become one of the more studied falls on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) this year, with the advertising and communications group now trading around 80% below its all-time high and carrying a market capitalisation of roughly £4bn. That places WPP uncomfortably close to the demotion threshold for the FTSE 100, which currently sits at around £3.6bn.

What the numbers from 2025 actually show

The headline figures from WPP’s 2025 preliminary results confirm the scale of the deterioration. Full-year reported revenue came in at £13,550m, down 8.1% on a reported basis and 3.6% on a like-for-like (LFL) basis. Revenue less pass-through costs, the figure WPP regards as its cleaner top-line measure, fell to £10,176m, down 10.4% reported and 5.4% LFL.

Profitability collapsed further down the income statement. Reported operating profit was £382m, a margin of 2.8%, against £1,325m and a 9.0% margin in 2024 — a 71.2% year-on-year decline. The group swung to a statutory loss for the year of £(172)m, against a profit of £629m in 2024. Diluted loss per share was (20.0)p, reversing earnings of 49.4p in the prior year. These figures are drawn from WPP’s 20-F filing with the SEC.

The dividend bore the consequences. WPP paid 15.0p per share for 2025, down 61.9% from 39.4p in 2024, according to the preliminary results announcement.

Cash generation also deteriorated sharply. Net cash inflow from operating activities fell to £724m in 2025, against £1,408m in 2024, a 49% decline year on year. The WPP Annual Report 2025 shows the workforce shrank to 98,655 at year-end, from 108,044 at end-2024 and 114,173 at end-2023.

The WPP share price decline has not stabilised in 2026

First-half 2026 data, from WPP’s H1 2026 interim results, shows the trajectory continuing. Revenue for the six months to June 2026 was £6,373m, down 4.4% reported and 3.2% LFL against £6,663m in H1 2025. Revenue less pass-through costs was £4,745m, down 5.6% reported and 4.7% LFL. Headline operating profit came in at £398m on an 8.4% margin, down 3.4% from £412m in H1 2025. Diluted earnings per share were 1.7p, against 4.0p in H1 2025. The interim dividend held at 7.5p, unchanged from H1 2025.

The first quarter was weaker still. According to Adweek, Q1 2026 revenue declined 6.6% year on year, or 4.0% LFL, with revenue of approximately £3.3bn in the three months to April 2026. CEO Cindy Rose opted out of the Q1 earnings call, choosing instead to lead updates only at half-year and full-year results.

The Public Relations segment has been a specific drag. Its LFL revenue less pass-through costs fell 6.0% in 2025, against a 1.7% decline in 2024, reflecting a difficult environment for client discretionary spending particularly in Europe. Part of the reported decline also reflects the disposal of FGS Global, completed in Q4 2024.

That disposal, announced in August 2024, saw WPP sell its majority stake of approximately 50% in FGS Global at an enterprise value of $1.7bn. The WPP announcement stated expected cash proceeds after tax of approximately £604m, comprising £557m of after-tax consideration and a net £47m inflow from repayment of a loan.

Is the valuation low enough to matter?

Against this backdrop, the central question for value-oriented investors is whether the WPP share price decline has already priced in the worst. The bear case is structural: advertising, communications, and public relations are precisely the workflows that generative AI tools are attacking most directly, and WPP’s own results suggest clients are reducing spend and headcount in those areas. Hargreaves Lansdown’s share data puts WPP’s net debt at £3.97bn as of end-2025, leaving limited balance-sheet flexibility for the kind of acquisition-led reinvention the group has attempted in past cycles.

The bull case rests on price alone. The stock trades at a forward dividend yield the original piece described as around 7%, and at a market value that has rarely looked so detached from WPP’s historic earnings power. This is the third significant de-rating the group has endured since it peaked under Martin Sorrell, but the current one is different in kind: revenue is falling, not just re-rating on a static earnings base.

The next hard test is whether H2 2026 LFL trends improve from the 3.2% decline posted in the first half. If that figure does not narrow, the thesis that the worst is priced in looks harder to sustain at any valuation.