French media group Havas, owners of Havas Worldwide and Havas Media, have announced a 14.5% rise in pre-tax profits for 2012, a total of £160m (€190m).

The No. 6 global ad holding company, behind fifth-placed Japanese giant Dentsu, had their financial results to Campaign magazine. You can read the full report here.

According to Havas Group’s full year results, the group’s consolidated companies reported revenue of €1.78bn in 2012, an increase of 8.1% year on year...Havas said digital and social media "once again increased their contribution" and now account for 26% of overall group revenue, while 17% of revenue comes from fast growing markets in Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Africa. Net new business...was €1.7bn in 2012, up 21.4% from €1.4bn a year earlier.
"2012 was a strong year reflecting continued progress on profitability, organizational structure and strategic growth areas. Importantly, we continued to deliver sequential year-over-year margin improvement with further potential in the years ahead," said Havas CEO David Jones.

"New business performance in 2012 was strong by agencies at global, regional and local level, and we continued to grow both our emerging markets as well as our digital business.

"We don't believe there's any reason this year will be dramatically better or dramatically worse than last year," Jones told AdAge. "We believe it will be very similar to 2012."

"While European economies remain challenged, we are confident in our ability to continue to deliver strong results and grow shareholder value for the long-term."