Strong organic growth for Experian

Perhaps better known for its consumer services, close to 80 per cent of the group’s revenue actually comes from its business-to-business (B2B) operations. A good take-up rate for new sources of data and product innovations boosted B2B organic revenue growth by 9 per cent. With 70 new clients for fraud and identity platform CrossCore and “substantial multi-product engagements” with major financial institutions in North America, ‘decisioning’ (decision analytics, data quality and health) revenue increased by 14 per cent.

Developments from the year are laying the groundwork for future growth. The launch of big data platform Ascend provides a case in point, with cross-selling opportunities increasing as the group introduces new modules that integrate with other Experian products such as PowerCurve, widening the addressable market.

Tapping into the largest population of unbanked and underbanked consumers in the world, the group is also pioneering data marketplaces in the Asia Pacific region, signing new commercial agreements with C88 and Jirnexu, two of the fastest growing credit comparison sites in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The previously lagging consumer services division returned to growth, aided by a rapidly growing product portfolio and new customer relationships – organic revenue growth was 6 per cent compared with a 5 per cent decline in 2018. The free membership base has swelled by 37.5 per cent to 55m, with 32m consumers in Brazil representing over 15 per cent of the population. As subscription-based credit monitoring services contracted, the UK continues to be a source of weakness, but new product features driving higher engagement in paid memberships mean the rate of decline has moderated to 4 per cent.

With a particularly weak Brazilian real, currency headwinds continue to weigh on earnings and margins – the benchmark operating margin shrank by 0.2 percentage points to 26.9 per cent, while EPS was depressed by 5 per cent. Overall, the group experienced net currency translation losses of $176m (£137m).