July 18 (Reuters) - French advertising group Publicis

upgraded its organic growth guidance on Thursday after

beating expectations for the second quarter, boosted by double

digit growth in its Epsilon and Media branches.

Publicis' recent strong performance runs counter to a

general slowdown in the advertising industry, seen as a

bellwether for broader economic health.

The world's largest advertising group by market value now

expects its organic revenue to grow between 5% and 6% compared

to its previous guidance of +4% and +5%.

Publicis expects to reach the higher end of its guidance if

clients end their "wait and see" attitude and increase spending

in digital transformation, allowing its IT consulting unit,

Sapient, to bounce back.

"There are many (clients) today who are waiting because of

macroeconomic uncertainties and who are reluctant to spend capex

to put this in place," Chief Executive Arthur Sadoun said in a

call with journalists, adding the unit's performance in the

United States in the past six months was a good sign.

The parent company behind agencies such as Leo Burnett and

Saatchi & Saatchi reported a net revenue of 3.46 billion euros

($3.78 billion) in the second quarter, with an organic growth of

5.4%, above consensus of 4.8% and the 4-5% it forecast in April.

Publicis' Epsilon unit, which provides targeted advertising

capacity, continued driving the group's performance thanks to

individualised consumer profiling, Sadoun said, adding the group

now has 250 million individualised profiles in the U.S.

Its performance in the Asia-Pacific region outpaced that in

North America and Europe, achieving 7.7% organic growth,

including 10.5% in China alone despite an "extremely

complicated" macroeconomic context.

In the first half ending June 30, the group's core profit

(Ebitda) rose 4.9% to 1.40 billion euros.

Rival Omnicom's ( OMC ) results for the second-quarter also

beat estimates amid ramp up of ad spending in the lead-up to the

U.S. presidential election and events such as the Paris

Olympics.

($1 = 0.9151 euros)