Sales of data products deliver results for YouGov

Revenue for the six months to 31 January was up 9% to £32.6m, while adjusted operating profit grew 31% to £2.9m, giving a margin of 9% – up two percentage points on a year ago.

The company made a reported loss of £400,000. “This was after charging amortisation of intangible assets of £1.9m and exceptional costs of £1.1m,” the company said – including £500,000 relating to two acquisitions made in the period (Doughty Media 2 and Decision Fuel) and £600,000 of restructuring costs arising from staff reductions, mainly in the Nordic business and the US.

Headcount was reduced by 20% in the Nordic region, which cut operating costs by 8%. The company says it made the changes in a bid to move the Nordic business “closer to the YouGov core model” by increasing the share of revenue derived from data products and services.

In the Nordic countries, data products and services now account for 25% of total revenue, which was £4.1m in the six months to 31 January. A quarter of US revenue – which totalled £10.4m in the period, down 4% on a year ago – is also derived from data products and services.

Meanwhile, in the UK – where revenue grew 19% to £9.3m – YouGov CEO Stephan Shakespeare (pictured) noted that: “We have achieved the target of a 50-50 split of revenues from custom research and the higher-margin syndicated and data products; the split across the whole company has shifted from 25-75 to 30-70.”

In particular, Shakespeare noted that YouGov’s BrandIndex and Omnibus business lines grew revenue in the first half of the year by, respectively, 51% to £3.9m and 22% to £4.2m.

“The data products and services that we deliver to our clients remain a key differentiator for YouGov in the marketplace,” he said. “To maintain our position we have continued to invest in product development and technology with a focus on areas including analytics, mobile applications and social media as well as in our panel.”