Strong financial performance boosted underlying sales by 6% and increased operating profit, reaffirming the company’s full-year guidance.
Pearson CEO Andy Bird said:
“We continue to make excellent strategic and operational progress with momentum across the business,” he continued.
Nonetheless, Bird told reporters at the release of the interim report that Pearson will begin selling some as non-fungible tokens in order to recoup some profits from used textbook sales.
He explained that if the textbook were to be resold “in the analog world”, Pearson would only participate in the first sale. this will change that.
“The shift to digital will help reduce the secondary market, and technologies such as blockchain and NFTs will allow us to participate in every sale of that particular product throughout its lifetime,” said Bird. increase.
This will allow Pearson to track the textbook’s unique identifier on the ledger. For example, “Owner A to Owner B to Owner C,” Bird added.
“Technologies like NFTs allow us to participate in every sale.”
This is in addition to Pearson+, the company’s digital subscription service.
Breaking down by product in terms of overall sales growth, Pearson’s US Student Ratings and UK & International Qualifications rose 16% in the Ratings & Qualifications category, citing exam schedules “normalizing after Covid disruption” Did.
Not a huge uptick, but looking at ‘solid retention’ in virtual schools, the virtual learning strand is up 3% in the first half, while OPM enrollments are reported to be weaker than expected.
Despite this, Bird argued that the digital approach is “on track.”
“Pearson+ has grown to 4.5 million registered users and is increasingly connecting directly with consumers,” he commented.
In contrast to the slow overall recovery in the ELT sector, Pearson’s English learning sector increased 22% in the six months to 30 June. English.
However, the only impact in terms of sales growth was the higher education sector, which declined by 4%, which was “as expected” as fall enrollment trends continue into spring.
Strategically, Pearson says it has used the last six months to accelerate its digital journey and build a digital learning ecosystem and user base.
The company has completed reorganizing Pearson into five divisions with independent responsibility for their overall cost base. This allows you to work more efficiently and cohesively.
“The more integrated platform we are building across the company is creating efficiencies.”
“The more integrated platform we are building across the company underpins new guidance to create efficiencies and accelerate margin improvement,” added Byrd.
Regarding full-year results, the report confirmed that the company is in a strong financial position and can sustain further growth “despite macro uncertainties”.
The company’s strong financial position in the first half was driven by its March partnership with UCAS, which develops Myriad English on the UCAS Myriad app, and its acquisition of language learning platform Mondly in April.
