WPP's Grey buys majority stake in China's Easycom

Advertising giant WPP’s wholly-owned operating company, Grey, a marketing communications network, bought a majority stake in Chinese social marketing agency Easycom.

The acquisition was part of WPP’s strategy to invest in markets and sectors that will strengthen its content and technology capabilities.

Founded in 2006, Easycom specialises in key opinion leader management, social content creation and social to offline event activation. Its clients include L’Oreal, China Merchants Bank, Diageo and Boehringer-Ingelheim.

Easycom’s unaudited revenues for the year ended 31 December 2015 were about RMB40.6m, with gross assets of about RMB26m.

WPP's digital revenues were over $7bn in 2015, accounting for over 37% of the company’s total revenues of $19bn. WPP said they had set themselves a target of 40-45% of revenue to be derived from digital in the next five years.

WPP companies in China generated $1.6bn in revenues and employed 14,000 people.

Shares in WPP fell 0.59% to 1,674p at 1221 BST.