The quarter was the best for growth this year; second quarter growth was 3% and the first quarter was 1.4%.
The French advertising group announced third-quarter revenues of €341m (£230.2m), up slightly year-on-year from €338m. It is €760m up in net new-business performance for the first nine months of 2005.
However, the big account losses around the end of 2004 continue to dampen operations. Havas said its next quarter would also suffer from the high basis of comparison with the fourth quarter of 2004, which saw organic growth of 4.6%.
The loss of Intel was blamed for negative organic growth in Asia of 8.6% during the quarter, although North America achieved organic growth of 7% despite the loss of the Volkswagen account.
Organic growth was only 0.1% in the UK, where Euro RSCG lost Argos and Del Monte and ousted its chairman Ben Langdon in September. The quarter was disappointing in media and healthcare, Havas admitted.
The company's executive committee said it will unveil its strategy for continuing its recovery to investors and the press before the end of the year. Havas' chairman Vincent Bollore has continued his personal spending spree on UK advertising and market research company Aegis, having now acquired 24.97% of the company.
Publicis Groupe, Havas' domestic rival, outpaced it with third-quarter organic growth of 6.2%. Publicis reported its figures last week.
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