DRS: elections win, but loses out on education

Election and census business, including the London Mayor and Assembly elections plus overseas census work, pushed DRS Data and Research’s erratic revenue to a 24% yoy revenue increase for the 10 months from January 1 2012, as heralded by previous updates (see here). Revenue from the election and census part of the business soared by 276% yoy but as the total is £4.8m it is still a minority part of the business. Despite a 4% rise in international education revenue, overall education revenue was down 2% to £12.1m due to a fall in UK legacy business (data capture scanners and paper-based data collection services). It all adds up to revenue for the 10 months of £16.9m and in line expectations for the full year. International education revenue is an important growth metric for DRS and could help smooth out overall performance, but with declining UK education revenue and a highly variable election and census revenue stream, there is a lot resting on its shoulders.