Five forces shaping Asia-Pacific consultancies in 2025
Behind the shortlist lies the bigger story: five trends that reveal how Asia-Pacific consultancies are evolving in a volatile, AI-driven, geopolitically charged market.
Last week, we published the inaugural Asia-Pacific shortlist for Earned First’s Consultancy Performance Index. Lists are nice, of course, but the underlying trends — curated from more than 45 submissions and consultancy meetings — tell us much more about how the profession is evolving.
Before we get to those, some context is probably helpful. This may well be the toughest year I have seen for the PR industry, thanks to a combination of economic malaise, geopolitical caution and automated uncertainty. Not that the year before was much easier, but this overall landscape should be borne in mind when assessing some of the trends that arise from this research. Investment levels, often an indicator of overall confidence, do not appear to be in especially rude health — with slow client decision-making and extended payment terms continuing to stifle the pace of progress.
Numbers behind the narrative
Thankfully, the Index's call for transparent data was heeded by many across the PR world, giving us some metrics to work with — although comparisons, obviously, will only become more tangible in year two of this endeavour. Even so, several topline statistics jump out, not least an overall industry fee income growth rate of approximately +4.2% in 2024, which I am quite sure declined in 2025. Growth was especially elusive at the bigger end of the scale; dropping to +2.7% for Asia-Pacific PR firms above $50m in regional revenue.
