March 6 (Reuters) - French advertising giant Publicis

has reached an agreement to acquire data and ID

technology group Lotame and plans to wrap it into targeted

marketing unit Epsilon, its main business driver.

Publicis said it expects the deal to expand its individual

consumer profiles to 4 billion from a current 2.3 billion.

The combined capability would allow Publicis to interact

with 91% of all adults who use the internet, CEO Arthur Sadoun

said in a statement.

Publicis has outpaced its adland competitors after a

10-year, 12 billion euro tech-driven transformation, leveraging

AI and big data to become the world's largest advertising firm,

at least until the planned merger of Omnicom ( OMC ) and

Interpublic, which would form a combined entity with

more than $25 billion in revenue.

Publicis said last month that it expects to outperform the

market again this year with an organic growth forecast of

between 4% and 5%, slightly below 2024.

British rival WPP ( WPP ) expects its revenue and profit to

be flat at best this year as its shares hit a four-year low

following disappointing results in February.

Publicis plans to allocate between 800 million and 900

million euros this year for targeted acquisitions in technology

and proprietary data.

The advertiser did not say how much the acquisition of

Lotame, which is expected to close early in the second quarter,

would cost.