Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, the world’s second-largest advertising and marketing company, said on Friday that his advertising group was undergoing a fundamental geographical shift in its business from Western Europe and North America to Asia and emerging economies.

Speaking to the Financial Times from China, Sir Martin said that: “If you ordered the world markets by the amount of growth opportunity, China would be number one and the US number two – and that‘s the first time that’s happened since the early nineteenth century.”