In its interim management statement for the ten months ended October 31st 2013, SITS provider to the education, election and census sectors, DRS Data and Research Services reported a revenue decline of 11.7%.
As reported at the time of the H113 results (see: DRS: revenues down but strategy on track), the decline was due to a drop in e-Counting census and election revenues. In H112 the company had signed a big £2.47m census contract but there has not been a similar sized contract in 2013. Adjusting for this contract, like for like revenue is up 3.4% compared with the same period last year.
However, even adjusting for this contract, non-education revenues were down 27.3% compared to 2012. In contrast, the worldwide education business continues to do well, growing 9.3% to £13.2m compared to the same period in 2012. The main contributor to this was a 48% increase in education revenue in Africa. Meanwhile the UK education business declined 2%.
DRS continues with its strategy to focus on international expansion and grow business in its education product, e-Marker. It’s not completely ignoring the census business though as the company, via its relationship with census framework provider, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has won a deal for census data scanning in Myanmar, which will be completed in 2014. Overall DRS expects full year results to be in line with market expectations.