B2B leads Experian's growth

New product launches were the source of much of the growth, as the group has looked to bolster the development of new services following the sale of email and CCM. This was seen most clearly in the B2B business, which saw organic revenue growth of 7 per cent as it improved data sources and looked to build out into new areas such as healthcare.

The US business has seemingly shaken off concerns about tightening credit, with organic revenue growth up 4 per cent for North America, driven by the B2B division. This was held back slightly by the consumer services business, which has been moving away from credit subscription services. The recently launched identity monitoring service IdentityWorks has performed strongly in the wake of the data breach at competitor identity checking service Equifax, sending the number of paying subscriptions to IdentityWorks to 120,000 by the end of October this year. Management noted that the breach has led to increased legislation and regulation, and may well lead to an increase in oversight for information security – all plus points as Experian thrives on regulatory complexity.

Trading activity in the UK and Ireland drew parallels with North America, but the challenges in consumer services were more pronounced on this side of the Atlantic, more than offsetting growth in B2B to trigger a 3 per cent decline in revenues. The group has been looking to reposition its UK consumer services division by providing services for managing credit and monitoring financial health. To that end, its free credit score offer has now reached close to 3m people. However, turnaround is not expected to come quickly. Management has said it only expects the benefits of repositioning to materialise “over the next several quarters”, while the rate of decline is expected to “moderate somewhat” in the second half of this year.

Analysts sound more upbeat, though, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch expecting an acceleration in organic growth thanks to a combination of new product launches in B2B and the start of a data services contract with mortgage company Fannie Mae in January 2018. Analysts at JP Morgan Cazenove increased their forecasts, predicting adjusted pre-tax profit of $1.22bn, giving EPS of 97¢ in the full year to March 2018 (from $1.12bn and 88¢ in FY2017).