For yet another year, Llorente & Cuenca leads the ranking of communication consultancies with the highest revenue in Spain, according to the latest data provided by the Commercial Registry for 2016.
That year, the firm, chaired by José Antonio Llorente, posted a revenue of 33.8 million euros, that is, 12% more than in the previous year. This improvement was largely due to the healthy business situation in Latin America, which provided 62% of its total turnover. The same growth trend was maintained last year, as the firm reported a 7.6% year-on-year increase in revenue, recording a figure of 36.3 million euros.
As has also been the case in recent years, second place in the ranking was occupied by Atrevia, albeit quite some distance off the pace set by the leader. With a business volume of 16.4 million euros, the agency, with Núria Vilanova at its helm, grew by 11% in 2016.
The podium was completed by Kreab, (a Swedish company) which was the top-ranked foreign consultancy firm. In the year under study, it obtained 8.4 million euros in revenue, which represents a year-on-year increase of 21%. This growth was based, in particular, on the performance of the areas of Public Affairs, financial communication and digital media.
It must be borne in mind that, in the case of both Llorente & Cuenca and Atrevia, revenue from operations outside Spain were taken into account, while in the case of the multinationals that operate in Spain, only their revenues registered in our country were taken into consideration.
In general terms, the top ten communication consultancies operating in Spain billed a total of 110 million euros in 2016, which translates into a year-on-year growth of 9%.
Such a rise was driven by Llorente & Cuenca, Atrevia, Kreab, Tinkle, Marco de Comunicación and Edelman, which produced outstanding growth in the same financial year. Conversely, the performances of Estudio de Comunicación, Burson-Marsteller, Apple Tree y Ketchum declined during that year.
Estudio de Comunicación, Burson-Marsteller, Apple Tree and Ketchum were the only communication agencies whose revenues fell.
Predictably, next year’s ranking will witness a significant change, as the Omnicom group has merged its communication agencies Ketchum and Porter Novelli. Based on the aggregate turnover of these two agencies, the firm created as a result –called Omnicom Public Relations Group– would have posted a combined revenue of 12.8 million euros in 2016, which would have placed it in third position.
Similarly, Burson Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe have recently merged to create the new firm, Burson Cohn & Wolfe, which would also see them achieve a higher position in the ranking.
In any case, according to this ranking, it would also appear that public relations are dominated in our country by Spanish capital consultancy firms, with six representatives. In this regard, Llorente & Cuenca, Atrevia and Tinkle are the leaders in the sector.
This is taken in a global context in which corporate communication is controlled by large multinational communication groups, such as WPP (which owns Burson), IPG (Weber Shandwick) and Omnicom (Ketchum).
We need only observe the ranking of communication agencies by revenue worldwide. Although the leader is an independent firm (Edelman), the following belong to large holding companies. Second place is occupied by Weber Shandwick, posting a revenue of 825 million euros. However, it is ranked outside the top ten in Spain. The third-ranked company –FleishmanHillard, with a turnover of 570 million euros (Omnicom group)– does not even operate in our country, as its global clients are catered for by Ketchum and Porter Novelli. Burson-Marsteller, H+K (WPP) and Ogilvy PR (WPP) also made the global top ten.
