Companies: YOU   

Internet pollster YouGov has released maiden full year results marginally ahead of forecasts from research house Hardman & Co. Pre-tax profits hit £996,000 on sales of £2.94m.

Although conducting newspaper polls for political and media clients constitutes the company’s most high-profile operations, its online commercial market research contributes the majority of sales.

For those unaware of this company, YouGov has an internet panel of just under 100,000 people throughout Great Britain, from whence it draws samples for each poll. Its cost base is lower that conventional competitors as it does not have to employ fieldworkers.

YouGov says it is looking for earnings-enhancing acquisitions in the market research sector. Organic growth here is difficult as many corporations are notoriously reluctant to switch the market research firm they employ for fear of 'information seepage'. Funds for purchases are not a problem, as the highly cash-generative company raised £3m at the time of float in April and had no less than £3.8m on its balance sheet at the year end.

Forecasts from Hardman point to pre-tax profits of £1.4m for 2006 and £1.9m for the year after, giving earnings of 7.2p and 10.1p. This burdens YouGov with a prospective p/e of 29.6 for 2006, falling to 21.1 for 2007. However, these predictions do not allow for any potential contributions from the new, Dubai-based joint venture YouGov Middle East or the soon-to-be-launched research product, BrandIndex, which will track the 'performance' of over a thousand consumer brands daily.

YouGov	AIM	£68.84m	71.25p	-1.50p
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