YouGov shares rocket as polling firm reports huge profits – and new boss says demand remains strong
- Pre-tax profits at the firm jumped 77% for the year ending July 2023.
- Revenue rose 17% to £258.3m following solid growth across all regions
- YouGov co-founder Stefan Shakespeare recently became its chairman
YouGov shares jumped on Tuesday after the pollster reported a huge jump in annual earnings amid testing economic conditions.
They climbed 22.7% to 846.4p by early afternoon, making them one of the ten best performers on the AIM All-Share Index, recovering much of their decline since late September.
Pre-tax profits at the business jumped 77 per cent to £44.7m for the year ending July 2023, following steady growth in turnover across all regions.
Entrepreneur: YouGov chairman Stefan Shakespeare (pictured) set up YouGov 23 years ago with former Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi
Revenue rose 17 per cent to £258.3m as solid sales of its syndicated data products boosted revenue in the US, YouGov’s biggest market, as well as the UK and continental Europe.
All three territories also delivered solid underlying growth for the firm’s custom research division, with domestic trading supported by demand from the sports and financial services sectors.
YouGov noted that while levels of “more tactical, fast-track research” have waned, clients are still significantly interested in more tailored strategic research, such as large multi-year multi-country tracking studies.
This came amid a much more challenging economic environment and a slowdown in the technology sector, although the company observed that sales momentum in the industry was “starting to return”.
Partly because of this, YouGov said trading since August was in line with forecasts and expected to meet market expectations for the current fiscal year.
Steve Hatch, the new chief executive, said: “Demand for YouGov’s products and services remains strong with continued new business momentum, high renewal rates and robust customer relationships.
“As a result, we remain confident in the group’s outlook for FY24 and beyond, aiming to maintain the strong sales momentum seen over the past year.”
Hatch replaced YouGov co-founder and longtime CEO Stefan Shakespeare in August, joining from Facebook owner Meta, where he was vice president of operations in northern Europe.
Shakespeare, now chairman of the firm, founded YouGov 23 years ago with former Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi.
The company is well known for its political research, accurately predicting the landslide victory of the Labor Party in the 2001 general election and the loss of the parliamentary majority to Theresa May in the 2017 election.
But YouGov also sells data on user opinions and behavior to businesses including car maker Vauxhall, social media platform TikTok and brewer Molson Coors.
Just before Shakespeare stepped down as chief executive, YouGov agreed to buy GfK’s consumer panels division in a bid to expand ties with the FMCG sector in Europe.
It hopes to complete the deal “in the coming months”, with funding coming partly from a £243m loan agreement it struck last week with lenders.
In August Shakespeare told the Financial Times that YouGov is considering a US listing, arguing that “markets are better at supporting companies like ours there”.
If the firm changes its primary registration to New York, it will join drugmaker Okyo Pharma, plumbing products supplier Ferguson and building materials supplier CRH in making the switch in the state.