9th Oct 2018 09:23
LONDON (Alliance News) - Market research and data analytics firm YouGov PLC hiked its dividend Tuesday after saying its annual profit and revenue grew ahead of its peers and prepared a new growth plan for the next five years.
For the financial year ended July 31, pretax profit jumped 49% to GBP11.8 million from GBP7.9 million a year prior. This was after revenue rose 9.0% to GBP116.6 million from GBP107.0 million the year before.
YouGov proposed a 3.0 pence per share full-year dividend, up 50% from 2.0p the year prior.
"We have delivered revenue and profit growth significantly ahead of our industry and continue to track to meet the financial objectives set out in our five-year plan," YouGov Chief Executive Officer Stephan Shakespeare said.
The current five-year plan of the firm - to shift to a more subscription-based rather than one-off revenue model - will end in July 2019. The firm is currently working on its next five year plan to run to July 2023.
"The success of that plan has been grounded in a clear vision as we break new ground in our industry," Shakespeare added. "Increasingly, our clients are demanding the rapid analysis of data in real-time and through targeted investments in technology we have built a data engine which serves the modern marketer. However, as the technology of decision making evolves, so must our products and applications."
"As we continue to invest in our future we are opening new routes to growth, whether that be through scaling our offering in new markets or launching new applications like YouGov Direct which champions privacy in the GDPR age," Shakespeare continued.
"Trading in the current financial year has started well, underpinning the board's confidence in meeting their expectations for the year," he said.
Shares in YouGov were 2.5% lower at 460.12p on Tuesday.
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