Pearson plc (NYSE:PSO) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call October 30, 2023 4:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Joanne Russell - SVP, Investor Relations
Andy Bird - CEO
Sally Johnson - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Luke Holbrook - Morgan Stanley
Adam Berlin - UBS
Thomas Singlehurst - Citigroup Inc.
Lisa Yang - Goldman Sachs
Nicholas Dempsey - Barclays
Joanne Russell
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Pearson's 2023 9-month trading update. Today, we'll host a presentation followed by a Q&A session. There will be two ways to submit your questions. If you would like to ask your question personally, please use the numbers that are displayed on screen. These lines will be open following the presentation. Alternatively, please type your questions into the questions tab at the top right of the screen and we will address them in turn. And with that, I'll hand over to Andy.
Andy Bird
Thanks, Jo, and welcome, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. As ever, I'd like to allow for as much time as possible for you to ask questions. So I'll quickly run through the highlights from today's announcement before handing over to Sally.
We've continued the positive momentum from the first half of the year and delivered another period of strong performance with a 5% increase in underlying sales. This was driven by particularly strong growth in English Language Learning and our Assessment & Qualifications division. We saw solid growth in Workforce Skills driven by the performance of both vocational qualifications and Workforce Solutions. In Virtual schools, we're seeing positive retention rates and applications for our Connections Academy Career Pathways program have been encouraging since its launch in June.
Our Higher Education business continues to trade in line with expectations. Now Sally will go into greater detail on the moving parts of the financials, but some key highlights are that inclusive access sales were up 26% year-over-year, and we continue to place focus on growing that part of the business. There's been encouraging growth in our platform products and Pearson+ continues to perform well with around 30% growth in paid subscriptions versus the prior fall semester. As usual, we'll be providing complete metrics for Pearson+ at our full year results.
As a result of this continued sales growth and focus on efficiency and operating margins, we are upgrading our full year guidance for adjusted operating profit by GBP 20 million to between GBP 570 million and GBP 575 million.