What Moved in 2025, by the Numbers
COMvergence tracks media-buying and planning account moves globally, and its Final 2025 Global New Business Barometer assessed more than 4,400 account moves and retentions across 49 countries, covering $37.4 billion in reviewed billings. The headline finding: industry-wide account retention fell to 21%, the lowest rate the tracker has measured in eight years, meaning a smaller share of media accounts stayed put with their existing agency than in any year since.
Publicis Media was the clear winner of whatever moved. It captured $10.5 billion in total new business in 2025, roughly one-third of all media spend that changed agencies globally that year, and more than $5 billion of that came from US new business alone, including Coca-Cola, Kenvue, and Mars.
Independent Agencies, and the Rest of the Holding-Company Field
Independent agencies collectively captured $5 billion in new business in 2025, real money, but well under half of what Publicis Media captured on its own. Among the other major holding companies: IPG Mediabrands took in $1.75 billion, Dentsu $1.62 billion, Havas Media Network $1.38 billion, and Omnicom Media $1.32 billion, while WPP Media posted a net-negative $1.77 billion, meaning it lost more billings than it won over the year.
By individual agency network rather than parent holding company, Starcom, part of Publicis, led with $2.7 billion in new business, followed by Initiative, part of IPG, at $2.4 billion, and Spark Foundry, also part of Publicis, at $2.1 billion. Two of the three top-performing individual networks both sit inside the same holding company, a concentration worth noting on its own. R3 Worldwide, the second major tracker of agency market movement, publishes a related but different cut: an average 22% agency pitch win rate for 2024, dropping to 19% for mid-sized agencies. That is not a holding-company deal-volume figure the way COMvergence’s numbers above are, but it confirms both organizations are real, active trackers of the same broad agency-market story, from different angles.
The Numbers
COMvergence’s Final 2025 Global New Business Barometer assessed more than 4,400 media account moves and retentions across 49 countries, totaling $37.4 billion in reviewed billings.
MediaPost, reporting on COMvergence’s Final 2025 Global New Business Barometer
Industry-wide account retention among media-buying and planning holding companies fell to 21% in 2025, the lowest rate measured in eight years.
MediaPost, reporting on COMvergence’s Final 2025 Global New Business Barometer
Publicis Media captured $10.5 billion in total new business in 2025, roughly one-third of all media spend that changed agencies globally that year, including more than $5 billion in US new business alone.
MediaPost, reporting on COMvergence’s Final 2025 Global New Business Barometer
Independent agencies collectively captured $5 billion in new business in 2025, against IPG Mediabrands’ $1.75 billion, Dentsu’s $1.62 billion, Havas Media Network’s $1.38 billion, and Omnicom Media’s $1.32 billion; WPP Media posted a net-negative $1.77 billion.
MediaPost, reporting on COMvergence’s Final 2025 Global New Business Barometer
By individual agency network, Starcom (Publicis) led with $2.7 billion in new business, followed by Initiative (IPG) at $2.4 billion and Spark Foundry (Publicis) at $2.1 billion.
MediaPost, reporting on COMvergence’s Final 2025 Global New Business Barometer
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- MediaPost, reporting on COMvergence’s Final 2025 Global New Business Barometer
- eweek.wfglobal.org, citing R3 Worldwide