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Trading Update from TNS
TNS, much in the news of late, has issued an optimistic trading update ahead of its full year results announcement at the beginning of March. The company expects to deliver underlying revenue growth and margin improvement in line with previous guidance.
As indicated in the interim results announcement in September, 2004 saw an improvement in overall market conditions over the previous year. The market for syndicated and continuous services has continued to grow consistently, whilst the market for custom research remains more variable by region and by sector.
TNS expects to show underlying revenue growth of three to four per cent, in line with the total market in 2004 and with its previous indications.
The European region as a whole matched expectations for growth, but with some variation by country. Germany has grown strongly, well ahead of the market, particularly in the Consumer and Automotive divisions. Whilst syndicated services in the UK again saw steady growth, the UK custom business weakened in the second half. France has performed in line with expectations.
North America benefited from good performance in the Consumer sector. Access panel operations continued to progress strongly, demonstrating TNS' market leading position. However, other sectors in the US were weaker in the second half and, with Mexico also weakening the picture, the Americas region overall will show limited growth for the year.
Ongoing strong performance throughout Asia Pacific should deliver double-digit growth in the region for the full year.
By sector, Consumer, Media, IT/Telecoms and Healthcare showed steady growth for the year as a whole, at or above total market rates. Business Services continues to be affected by weaker levels of corporate earnings.
Margin expectations for 2004 remain consistent with those stated at the interim results in September, that is an improvement of 50-100 basis points, which would represent a full year 2004 margin of 10.5 to 11.0 per cent.
According to TNS Chief Executive, Mike Kirkham, 'With continued macro-economic growth, we would expect to see total market growth of around four per cent in 2005. Given the progress that TNS has made in the past twelve months, we would anticipate achieving underlying revenue growth ahead of the market, together with further margin improvement, in 2005'.
The TNS web site is at www.tns-global.com
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