Pearson: world economy "not helpful"

published 3 November 2011

FTSE 100 media giant Pearson said it had increased revenues by 6% and operating profit by 13% in the first nine months of 2011.

In a moment of dramatic understatement, chief executive Marjorie Scardino said "the world economy is neither simple nor helpful this year", but said all the group's businesses were trading as expected.

"We can't count on the trading environment to get any easier any time soon, but we do expect our durability and our innovation to continue to help us succeed," she said.

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Pearson said it anticipated that interest and tax charges on adjusted earnings would be lower than previous guidance.

"As a result, we now expect to achieve adjusted earnings per share of approximately 83p for the full year (ahead of our previous guidance of approximately 80p)," the company said.

Sales were up 7% at the FT Group, with the digital subscriptions increasing more than 30% to almost 250,000 and registered users by 40% to almost four million.

At the end of September there had been over 790,000 users of the FT's web app with mobile devices now accounting for 20% of FT.com traffic and more than 15% of new subscriptions.

Advertising had been flat in the first nine months of the year, the firm added.

At Penguin, sales were level with 2010 but the firm did note the continued rise of eBook sales - which more than doubled in the first nine months of the year.

Pearson's North American division struggled as state budget cuts kicked in, with revenues up just 1%,

But its International Education and Professional Education divisions fared much better, with sales up 19% and 21% respectively.