YouGov falls to loss in ‘challenging year’

Polling firm YouGov crashed to a pre-tax annual loss of £700,000 despite launching new surveys, Recession Tracker and Debt Tracker, to try to capitalise on the downturn.

Last year, it posted a profit of £4 million. YouGov has suffered from high-rolling clients such as investment banks slashing spending on surveys and research.

Turnover rose 10% to £44.3 million for the year to July, but was down 3% when the weak pound's flattering effect was stripped out.

Chief executive Nadhim Zahawi admitted the past 12 months had been "very challenging", adding: "We used to get a lot of work from investment banks looking into shopper behaviour as background for their equity ratings — that fell away quickly in the downturn."

YouGov ran daily polls during the Conservative and Labour Party conferences this month, and the firm said that during the election year it will be launching minute-by-minute insight into voting sentiment on its website.

But Zahawi said that while political polling was "a great shop window" it represented only about 2.5% of YouGov's total revenue.