14th Oct 2013 09:42
LONDON (Alliance News) - YouGov PLC Monday reported an increase in pretax and revenue for the full year, reflecting a strong performance across the business.
The market-research agency posted pretax profit of GBP1.5 million for the period ended July 31, up from GBP440,000 a year earlier, while revenue increased 7.7% to GBP62.6 million, from GBP58.1 million in 2012.
The company said its international operations performed particularly well, with the Middle East business recording the biggest increase in revenue. Revenue for the region increased 22% to GBP7.3 million from GBP6.0 million a year earlier.
The UK business also made good progress, with revenue increasing 11% to GBP17.4 million from GBP15.7 million in 2012.
In line with its strategy, YouGov said UK revenue from data products and services grew proportionately faster, at 20%, than from custom research, at 7%.
YouGov said Data products and services now represent 46% of its total revenue and its scalability helps to make the UK its highest margin unit.
However, it said the Nordic business experienced a challenging year due to poor trading in Sweden, which led to overall revenue falling 4% to GBP8.5 million, from GBP8.8 million in 2012.
In January 2013, a turnaround programme was instituted for the Nordic arm with the aim of restoring growth and improving margins by shifting the business model closer to that of the UK with a higher proportion of Omnibus and data products business. Staff numbers were reduced resulting in cost savings of GBP0.5 million on an annual basis. As a result there was a return to profitability in the second half of the year.
"Our focus in the coming year will remain on maintaining the growth from our expanding suite of data products and services and on focussing resources in all our existing operations to exploit further the advantages of our core operating model," Chief Executive Stephan Shakespeare said in a statement.
"Encouragingly, our clients are demanding a more data-centric focus to their market research. Consistent with this, we plan to continue extending our panels to new markets and thus to offer our data and insights to ever greater numbers of clients.
YouGov increased in its dividend to 0.6 pence, up from 0.5 pence.
Shares were trading at 73.75 pence Monday, up 4.25 pence or 6.1%.
By Anthony Tshibangu; [email protected]; @AnthonyAllNews
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