PR and public affairs proved WPP’s strongest division during the first quarter of the year, with revenue gains from those subsidiaries up 6.8 percent to £291 million (about $376 million) as well as 4.4 percent on a like-for-like basis.

Growth among the British conglomerate’s PR/PA portfolio, which includes agencies Ogilvy Public Relations, Cohn & Wolfe, Burson-Marsteller, Finsbury, Hill+Knowlton Strategies and Prime Policy Group, reveals a continuing trend that began during the first half of 2016 and continued into the year’s third quarter.

WPP

The British ad/PR conglomerate noted an especially strong performance by its Cohn & Wolfe unit in the U.S., which was driven primarily by consumer and healthcare spending. The holding company also highlighted H+K Strategies’ performance in Europe, Africa & the Middle East and Ogilvy PR's work in North America, Europe, Africa & the Middle East, as well as a strong Q1 performance by lobbying giant Glover Park Group.

Net sales for the PR/PA units were up 6.8 percent and 3.9 percent on a like-for-like basis.

All regions boasted growth, with particularly strong gains in the U.S., U.K., Western Europe and the Middle East.

Across the holding company, revenue in the first quarter was £3.59 billion (about $4.6 billion), up 3.6 percent and .2 percent on a like-for-like basis, compared to £3.07 billion (about $4.5 billion) during the first quarter of 2016. Like-for-like revenue growth was up in the U.K. (+ 3.2 percent) and Western Continental Europe (+5.3 percent). North America, on the other hand, saw a dip of 3 percent.

The holding company in an earnings statement pointed to the intensifying pressures of technological disruption that’s affecting everything from transportation to hospitality to the retail industries, as well as investors’ emphasis on the short-term, which may come at a cost to long-term, profitable growth, and finally, a fiercely competitive marketing environment where account wins often follow unnecessarily deep discounts to clients, which may place the industry in danger of “losing the plot,” and comes at the potential cost of “storing up problems for the next generation of management.”

The statement also said WPP remains well positioned to deliver on its long-term targets.