Last week, Wavemaker, Zenith and Initiative topped the list of global media agencies with the most new business wins. This week, it’s Canada’s turn for the spotlight, with Carat, OMD and UM landing in the top three media agency spots for the country, according to COMvergence.

The other individual agencies in the top 10 are Zenith, Havas Media, Hearts & Science, Jungle Media, Publicis Media, Touche!, and Spark Foundry.

Dentsu’s numbers were bolstered by Carat’s win of the Telus Mobile business with a budget valued at $166.9 million and $13.1 million for the Koodo part of the mandate, according to the rankings.

The independent and international research bureau also reported that Dentsu topped the list of media agency networks, followed by Omnicom Media (OMG), Publicis Media, Havas Media Network, Mediabrands and GroupM.

According to the analysis conducted for the first half of this year, Dentsu’s net new business and client retention came to $156 million. Meanwhile, OMG garnered $69 million; Publicis brought in $42 million; Havas netted $20 million; Mediabrands reported billings of $8 million; and GroupM saw a drop of $37 million.

Looking at the share of local versus global wins, Canada was above average, with local pitches representing 77% of the total media spend reviewed. Globally, 66% of assessed media reviews and moves were related to local pitches.

In Canada, there were 42 account moves and pitches and 33 were won or retained by media agency networks – nine by independent or non-network agencies and eight by the incumbent agency. The top five media pitches and moves were Telus ($180 million), Kimberly-Clark ($28 million), Jaguar & LR ($16 million), LVMH ($14 million), Bacardi ($13 million) and Clorox ($13 million).