YouGov Trading 'In Line with Expectations'

Online research agency YouGov has announced that its full-year trading is in line with current market expectations, but says it is expecting 'tough market conditions' to continue at least until the end of 2009.

In a trading statement, the firm said that recent cost saving measures - including the thirty staff redundancies announced in April - should help improve underlying profit in the next financial year. The cutbacks in non-core activities are expected to reduce the firm's annual operating cost base by about £2.5m.

Despite a 54% drop in headline pre-tax profits for the six months to the end of January, the firm says it has performed as expected in all its geographies, including at its recently acquired US branding, customer sat and new product research agency Clear Horizons. This has now been integrated into the US business and rebranded as YouGov Marketing Insights.

'Across the Group, the number and range of invitations to bid for larger scale corporate and public sector research projects has increased,' YouGov said in a statement. 'We have recently been appointed to the UK Government's Central Office of Information Market Research framework which will enable us to compete for a wider range of public sector research projects.'

YouGov also said that its new international omnibus service is performing well, and that its BrandIndex reputation tracker was attracting interest from potential subscribers in the US and Middle East.

Earlier, shares of the company were up 7.7% at 56 pence on the London Stock Exchange.