LONDON - British online market research company YouGov said it had not seen any major drop in demand from its Silicon Valley clients in the six months to end-January, underpinning its confidence in the rest of the year.
Co-founder and chief executive Stephan Shakespeare said its clients valued the volume and duration of data provided by YouGov's panels of more than 24 million people giving their opinions on companies, politics and trends.
"Silicon Valley is an important area for us," he said in an interview. "In the first half, all of our Silicon Valley clients have spent the same as expected."
He said there was a degree of uncertainty in the outlook given the job cuts announced by Meta and other tech firms in recent months and weakness in sentiment, but the company's first-half performance gave it confidence.
He said YouGov would update investors on its longer term strategy at a Capital Markets day in May, when it would show some of the new capabilities of its platform, including using AI to analyse qualitative data.
YouGov, which produces political polling as well as corporate market research, on Tuesday reported a 13% rise in first-half revenue to 131.4 million pounds ($161 million) and a 49% underlying rise in adjusted pretax profit to 26.5 million pounds.
Shares in YouGov, which has a market capitalisation of almost 1 billion pounds ($1.23 billion), traded up 3% in morning deals.
($1 = 0.8161 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Sarah Young)