YouGov Reports on 'Challenging' Year

Online researcher YouGov has announced a decline in both turnover (down 6% to £21.3m) and operating profit (down 16% to £1.35m).

The firm said its interim results for the year ended 31 January 2010 showed 'solid operational progress in challenging market conditions' and noted that results were 'in line with expectations'

Adjusted profit before tax was down from £2.4m in the previous year to £1.4m, and adjusted earnings per share were 1.0p, down from 1.7p in 2009. YouGov's balance sheet remains strong - net cash increased to £14.9m from £13.7m as at 31 January 2009.

Operations in the UK and Germany showed improved profitability, while US revenues continued to grow, but Scandinavian operations needed further restructuring and the loss of £800k in revenue on one large contract in the Middle East pulled down the overall figures.

YouGov will retain a high profile in the next few weeks as its publishes results of daily political polling (in partnership with News International) up to the UK's General Election and beyond.

CEO Stephan Shakespeare commented: 'Our new technology platform has been rolled out to all our hubs and we are already seeing the benefits coming through with the launch of daily polling in the UK and our pioneering new 'TellYouGov' website' - the latter is billed as 'the first product to generate statistically meaningful data from micro-blogging'. Shakespeare said he expects profitability to be stronger in the second half of the financial year than in the first and that the Group had a good new business pipeline.

The Group also confirmed that on the 11th March this year its company YouGovpsychonomics AG bought the 40% minority shareholding in its subsidiary, Service Rating GmbH from the other minority shareholder, Assekurata for a total price of EUR 340,000.

The Group's home page is at www.yougov.com .