Nielsen Records 30% Hike In Earnings

Nielsen Holdings N.V.’s fiscal third-quarter earnings rose by nearly 30% -- but analysts were expecting more.

Nielsen’s stock was down as much as 5% in mid-day trading, but closed at $38.29, slipping 1.4% from the previous day.

Net income climbed 28% to $134 million during its fiscal third quarter on a 2.7% rise in revenues to $1.39 billion. Some analysts were expecting higher results from the $86 million level for the same period a year ago.

Nielsen's Watch business witnessed revenues climbing 3.4% to $516 million -- much of this coming from a 5.0% constant currency growth in its core television measurement business. Nielsen describes its Watch segment as "what consumers watch," and includes such services at TV ratings, Internet and mobile audience measurement.

Nielsen’s Buy business had revenues inching up 2.2% to $871 million. The “Buy” business is described as "what consumers buy," and includes market research and analytics services.

Somewhat better news comes from revenues from developing markets, which grew 7.5% on a constant currency basis, with double-digit growth in many key markets as both global and local clients.

In speaking on the earnings call, David Calhoun, CEO of Nielsen, said: “Our investments in building more coverage in the places where our clients want it the most. Africa, China, India and most recently in Mexico, continue to go well.”

With regard to upcoming product launches, such as its TV/social media reports, he said: “The Social Media platform, which we launched with SocialGuide, and then most recently, the Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings, which we're only a couple of weeks into, [has made] real, real good progress -- a lot of excitement around it. We have 70 TV clients. We went from 0 to 8 agency clients as we launched the ratings products.”

In discussing the recent completion and government approval of Arbitron, to be known as Nielsen Audio, Calhoun, said there will be “linkage of audience data with our retail data, again, to demonstrate improved ROI, also streaming as a new market opportunity and then ultimately taking this technology and audience measurement around the world.”

"Watching TV" photo from Shutterstock"

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