COMvergence 2025: WPP Leads India, But the Real Story is Local

Introduction

Every year, the COMvergence New Business Barometer tells Indian media planners, agency heads, and brand CMOs something they half-know but rarely see quantified: who is actually winning, who is losing ground, and — more importantly — what the numbers reveal about how India's media economy actually works. The 2025 edition is out, and while the headline rankings confirm some expected hierarchies, the data beneath the surface contains insights that should reshape how both agencies and brands think about media strategy in India.

The Big Announcement

COMvergence, the independent research consultancy specialising in media spend analysis and new business benchmarking, has published its India New Business Barometer for FY2025 — covering all account movements and retentions between January and December 2025.

The report analysed 129 account moves and retentions across the Indian market, representing total estimated media spends of $1.06 billion — a substantial snapshot of how India's media agency economy shifted through the year.

At the holding group level, the rankings are clear. WPP Media retained its leadership position with a new business value of +$320 million, followed by Publicis Media at +$223 million, and Omnicom Media Group (OMG) in third place at +$98 million.

At the individual agency level, EssenceMediacom emerged as the dominant force with a commanding +$233 million in new business value — maintaining a substantial lead over all competitors. Wavemaker secured second position at +$73 million, backed by notable wins including the Paytm retention and the e-commerce mandate for Reckitt India in Q4 2025. Starcom and PHD shared third place with +$70 million each, followed by Havas Media at +$42 million and OMD rounding out the top five at +$28 million.

Key account movements that shaped the competitive landscape during the year included major brands such as Godrej Group, Kenvue, Hero MotoCorp, Marico, Dabur, Mars, LinkedIn, Paytm, Muthoot Finance, Sony Pictures Network, Shaadi.com, and Suzuki Motorcycles.

What This Means for Your Brand

The rankings matter — but the structural insight buried in the data is what every Indian brand marketer and agency leader needs to act on.

Of the 129 accounts assessed, only 25 were global or multi-market pitches, contributing $227 million in new business value. The remaining 104 accounts were purely local pitches, accounting for $835 million — a striking 79% local pitch rate against a global average of just 58%.

That 21-percentage-point gap is not a statistical footnote. It is a fundamental statement about how Indian brands make media decisions — and it has direct implications for how agencies should be structured, staffed, and positioned.

For Indian brands and CMOs, this data validates what experienced media planners have long argued: India's consumer diversity, regional media complexity, and cultural specificity make locally led media strategy not just preferable but commercially essential. A global network mandate negotiated in Singapore or London will consistently underperform a locally developed strategy built on ground-level market intelligence.

For media agencies, the data signals where competitive advantage is genuinely being built. Agencies that invest in deep local expertise — regional media relationships, vernacular content strategy, hyperlocal data capabilities — are capturing the lion's share of India's media economy. Global scale helps win rooms; local knowledge wins pitches.

The contrarian perspective: as Indian conglomerates expand internationally and global brands deepen India investment, the proportion of multi-market pitches may gradually increase. Agencies that build only for local will eventually encounter ceiling effects as the most sophisticated briefs begin requiring both.

Expert Take

EssenceMediacom's dominance at +$233 million — nearly three times the second-placed Wavemaker — deserves specific analysis. This is not a marginal lead; it represents a structural competitive advantage built over multiple years of consistent pitch performance and client retention discipline.

Wavemaker's second-place finish is equally instructive. The Paytm retention — one of India's most significant digital advertising accounts — signals that incumbent relationships, when actively managed, remain highly competitive against challenger pitches. The additional Reckitt India e-commerce mandate won in Q4 2025 reflects the growing importance of performance and commerce capabilities within traditional media agency offerings.

The Starcom and PHD tie at third reflects the genuinely competitive middle tier of India's agency landscape, where differentiation is harder to sustain and individual account wins or losses can shift annual rankings significantly. For brands evaluating agencies in this tier, the 2025 data suggests capability parity — meaning cultural fit, team quality, and strategic vision will be the true differentiators in pitch decisions.

The brands.in Perspective

The COMvergence 2025 data makes one thing unmistakably clear: India is not a market that global media networks can win from the outside in. With 79% of pitches decided on local terms, the agencies and groups that dominate are those that have invested most deeply in understanding India's media landscape on its own terms — not as a regional extension of a global framework. WPP's continued leadership reflects years of that local investment. For challenger groups and independent agencies, the same data reveals where the opportunity lies: not in competing on global scale, but in building the kind of India-specific expertise and relationships that $835 million worth of local pitches are decided upon every year.

Key Takeaways for Marketers

• 79% of India's media pitches are local — significantly above the 58% global average — confirming that local expertise drives media agency selection
• EssenceMediacom's +$233M lead reflects the compounding advantage of consistent pitch performance and strong client retention
• Retentions matter as much as new wins — Wavemaker's Paytm retention demonstrates that defending existing business is a genuine competitive strategy
• $1.06 billion in assessed media spends makes India one of the world's most actively contested media agency markets
• Brand CMOs should prioritise local market intelligence and regional capability when evaluating media agency partners in India

FAQ

Q: What is the COMvergence India New Business Barometer? It is an annual report by COMvergence, an independent media research consultancy, that tracks and benchmarks account movements, retentions, and new business performance across India's media agency landscape — providing a data-driven view of competitive positioning among agencies and holding groups.

Q: Which agency led India's media new business rankings in 2025? EssenceMediacom led all agencies with a new business value of +$233 million — a commanding margin ahead of second-placed Wavemaker at +$73 million. At the holding group level, WPP Media topped the rankings with +$320 million in new business value.

Q: Why does India have a higher local pitch rate than the global average? India's consumer diversity, linguistic complexity, regional media fragmentation, and culturally specific consumption patterns make locally developed media strategies significantly more effective than globally standardised approaches — driving brands to prefer country-specific pitches over multi-market mandates.

Closing

The numbers are in — and India's media economy is telling agencies and brands the same thing it has always told those willing to listen: understand this market on its own terms, or lose to someone who does. Which side of that equation is your organisation on?

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