Good morning, everybody. As you would have seen from our press release this morning, RELX delivered underlying revenue growth of 8% in the first nine months of 2023, in line with the first half. The electronic revenues, which represent over 80% of the total, underlying growth was 7%. The continued recovery in face-to-face revenues more than offset print declines, giving the overall 8%. Our improving long-term growth trajectory continues to be driven by the ongoing shift in business mix towards higher growth analytics and decision tools that deliver enhanced value for our customers across market segments. Full year outlook remains unchanged, both at the group level and for each of the four business areas.
We continue to expect underlying growth rates in revenue and in adjusted operating profit to remain above historical trends, driving another year of strong growth in adjusted earnings per share on a constant currency basis. Turning to the performance of each business area. In Risk, underlying revenue growth was 8%, in line with the first half. Growth continues to be driven by our deeply embedded analytics and decision tools across segments, with recent acquisitions in compliance and behavioral biometrics and in home and life insurance performing well. In Business Services, which represents around 45% of revenue, growth continues to be driven by financial crime compliance and digital fraud and identity solutions. And in Insurance, representing nearly 40% of revenue, growth reflects continued new sales momentum and positive market factors. Specialized Industry Data Services, representing just over 10% of revenue, continued to deliver strong growth.
In STM, underlying revenue growth was 4%, in line with the first half. Growth continues to be driven by the evolution of the business mix, with the high growth segments representing an increasing proportion of divisional revenue. Growth in databases, tools, and electronic reference, which represents nearly 40% of divisional revenue, was driven by content development and the evolution of higher value-added analytics and decision tools. Primary research growth was driven by article submissions, with pay-to-publish open access articles continuing to grow particularly well. In Legal, underlying revenue growth was 6%, up from 5% in full year 2022, and in line with the first half of this year. The improvement in growth has been driven by the continuing shifts in business mix towards higher growth legal analytics. Lexis+, our integrated platform leveraging extractive AI functionality, continues to see increasing customer adoption and usage.
Feedback from customers participating in the testing phase of Lexis+ AI, our new platform leveraging generative AI functionality, has been very positive, and we are seeing high levels of interest across legal markets. In Exhibitions, underlying revenue growth was 32%. Average like-for-like event revenues across the portfolio continues to run ahead of pre-pandemic levels, with increased usage of a growing range of digital tools. With that, we are ready for questions.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. We'll take now our first question from George Webb from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Good morning, Nick. I'll kick off with three questions, please. Firstly, around Lexis+ AI, can you give us some kind of key areas of user feedback so far that you've perhaps been going back and revising and improving the product with, and the latest on the kind of launch timeline there? Secondly, on the insurance segment of the risk business, in the latest LexisNexis report, the new policies are still growing strongly. Q2 saw a slight dip year-over-year by June around shopping trends. But what have you seen in Q3 so far? And can you talk about perhaps the sustainability of those drivers?
And then lastly, on the exhibitions business, you were talking in the first half around average like-for-like event revenue being ahead of pre-pandemic levels by the end of the period, and that's still true at the nine-month stage. Can you give us a feel for how much ahead you're running on that metric? Is it 1%- 2% or something more material? Thank you.
Yeah, I'll take each of those. Yeah, I mean, Lexis+ AI, for those who are less familiar, that was our new platform leveraging generative AI functionality. We previewed that with customers back in May. We have been in development since then, testing it with hundreds of customers, applying thousands of queries across a range of different customers, so law firms, corporate legal departments, court users. Feedback's been very positive. It's an iterative process, of course, as we take their feedback on what works particularly well and where we can make things even better. But that's been a very positive process. We've got high levels of interest from our legal customers, and the commercial launch is coming soon. We will announce that directly to each customer group, when it's available to them.
Your second question was on insurance and the volumes. I think that the first point to make, of course, in risk is the key drivers of growth are actually the development of new data sets and applying new analytics to that data and to existing data, rolling out those products to new customers. And there is some variation in the growth rate. As you've seen in recent years, it's typically been in the 7%-9% range, as the base revenue varies, and that is because we do have some revenues that relate to the volumes going through the platforms. In insurance, in particular, the volumes are particularly strong during the first half of this year. They remain strong, particularly for switching and new policies....
The growth rates have eased a little, particularly on shopping, as the comparatives have got tougher, but the overall dynamics and volumes are still very good. And of course, the other big part of the division, business services, I think we mentioned the volume growth picking up towards the end of Q2 with the half year results, and that has continued through Q3. And then, exhibitions, and how we're doing relative to pre-pandemic. Yeah, no, we have been running ahead. We sort of crossed that threshold during the first half. That has continued through the third quarter, albeit the third quarter is seasonally not quite as big for the exhibitions business.
It does vary from event to event, but I think on average, for the full year, we, you know, even though we were behind at the beginning and now we're ahead, it, you know, on a like-to-like basis, it should be pretty much in line with, across the full year, in line with, 2019 on a like-to-like basis.
Quite clear. Thank you, Nick.
We'll take now our next question from Lisa Yang, from Goldman Sachs. You can go ahead now. Your line is open. Thank you.
Thank you for taking my questions. On Lexis+ AI, I was just wondering, obviously, you haven't launched it commercially, so not going to talk about pricing, but could you maybe share a bit more color on the feedback you're getting from customers on the trial? For instance, have they been able to measure the improvement in productivity? Have you seen significant growth in usage or any, just a bit more sort of KPIs you could share? And is it also possible to give us an update on the AI development you're undertaking across the other divisions? I think you spoke about Scopus AI, but also where you're on the testing there and any other products you can sort of talk about. The second question-
Mm-hmm.
Still on legal. Obviously, there's, there's been a number of other, you know, LLMs, like Harvey AI and Casetext. Also wondering the feedback you're getting from your customers in terms of how your product compares, versus your competitors. And, and what you think is the, the, the strong moat of, of Lexis+ AI compared to competition. And the last question is on exhibitions. Obviously, China has been quite, quite soft on the macro side. I was just wondering how the JVs there are performing, and, and in general, how the rebooking rates looking versus services last year. Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, Lexis, the Lexis+ AI development, there's not a huge amount more I can say, but other than we, you know, we have been getting some very positive feedback from customers. You know, they like what it can do, and seeing good value and efficiency. I'm not sure we've reached the point of being able to measure that for every customer, but it's the... What they're seeing from it is the reaction we're getting is very positive. The interest from the wider market is very positive. We will be launching it soon, as I said, and then, you know, no doubt it will keep developing from there. So that's progressing well.
As far as Gen AI across the group elsewhere, it's of course, most, most relevant for the, the legal business, given the nature of, of what we do and what our clients do. It's of perhaps of less relevance in the risk business and in STM, somewhere in between. We have got initiatives around Gen -2 AI, both for internal application, where we can make ourselves more efficient using it, but also, perhaps more importantly, around the, around the products. As you say, we are, we've already announced the Scopus AI, using generative AI functionality in, in the, in the STM product there.
We have a number of other initiatives underway across different products, and we will be using it to generative AI, we will be using it to enhance our existing products, develop new products, you know, as we've been doing with other new technologies as they've emerged. So, watch this space on that. As far as you asked a question about the gen AI product in legal and our competitive position and so on, look, I think we've got the authoritative content for in legal.
Applying the generative AI to those, to that content, being able to use the best model, the best large language model for each application, controlling the quality of the output by integrating it with our authoritative underlying content and with our approach to search technologies, is absolutely key. We are using a multi-model approach, applying whichever model is best. We'll be learning which is the best large language model to use for different use cases. So I think we feel we're as well placed as anybody to bring value from applying generative AI technology in the legal market. And your third question was on exhibitions in China. Obviously, China's a single-digit percentage of the revenue in exhibitions, but it's reopened and recovering strongly.
Revenues in China already above 2019 levels, but it's, you know, see that as part of the overall mix in the, in the business.
... Thank you very much. We'll take now our next question from Sami Kassab, from BNP Paribas. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning, Nick. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions as well, please, Nick. The first one is on pricing with Lexis+ AI, to the extent that you can discuss that. CoCounsel is the main competitor here. Do you intend to price Lexis+ AI in the range of CoCounsel or above or below this other product? Secondly, I assume that your salespeople are busy trying to renew contracts to your products and services as we go into 2024. Can you comment on the price inflation you expect to put through in these discussions, and how that compares to 2023? Will it be in the same at the same level, or will it be below or above what you put through in 2023?
Lastly, with regards to RX, do you think you can exceed GBP 300 million of operating profit this year at RX? Thank you, Nick.
Okay, Sammy, thanks for those. Lexis+ AI, on the pricing of it. So it will, as we said when we previewed the product back in May, it will be offered as a premium tier to the Lexis+ platform. The price, however, will vary depending on exactly what services a particular customer is taking, which specific content has been configured, for that different customer type, different locations. So, I think that's as much as I can say. We'll obviously talk to the individual customers, individual customer groups, about what that pricing is, when we launch commercially. Your second question about price inflation more generally, I mean, it... Strategically, we actually are always looking to provide more value to customers.
So we are not typically looking to put through inflationary type price increases. Of course, the volumes and value we're adding is going up all the time, so we're looking for to drive increased spend against that increased value that we provide. But the key to driving the revenue growth in all of our businesses is actually about developing new content, new data sets, applying new analytics, developing new tools and rolling those out to customers. It's not about the price of the existing existing offering. And your last question on exhibitions, I think, you know, you can, you can probably, from what we said, make some reasonable estimates on the the revenue base for 2023.
As we said, at the half year, we are expecting margins this year to be above pre-pandemic levels. So if you apply that, you'll get numbers, you know, reasonably close to what you're suggesting, Sammy. And I think the key point there with exhibitions is that, you know, we've come out of the pandemic having restructured the business, having focused it on the best performing events, and believe we now have a higher value add business that is higher growth and higher margin.
Thank you, Nick, and if I may have a quick follow-on on RX. A few years ago, there was discussion on keeping or selling the asset. You had suggested that you wanted to normalize the business post-COVID, and we're almost there, and that you were trying to digitalize and add value through technology. Can you update us on your latest thoughts as to whether RX is a long-term asset you want to keep, please?
Well, there continues to be a big opportunity in exhibitions for... as we complete the recovery, and now focus increasingly on the digital and data opportunity. As I said, you know, we do believe the business is going to be higher value add, higher growth, higher margin than it was pre-pandemic, and our focus is entirely on delivering and demonstrating that.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We'll take now our next question from Nick Dempsey, from Barclays. You can go ahead now. Thank you.
Yeah, good morning, Nick. I've got three as well. So first of all, just going back to the Lexis+ AI product, just to try and understand your, your broad hopes for the scale of this product, is it something that we could notice in the 2024 organic growth for the legal division? Or is it just another product, part of the usual kind of process, and it's not something that's gonna be noticeable on top? Second question, looking at 2024 for STM, I know a lot of people think it's logical that with Germany coming back in, that that should provide a small boost to your organic growth in 2024, versus what you're seeing in 2023. Is it logical to follow that through or not?
The last question, in exhibitions, can you give us an idea of the pricing you've been able to put through in 2023, and what you are starting to achieve for 2024 in your forward booking?
Yeah, look, I think on the generative AI and the Lexis+ AI platform, you know, obviously, generative AI is a powerful technology. And we do see that as something that we can use to enhance our existing products, and develop new products that apply particularly in legal, as I said, but also in STM. And that's, of course, what we've been doing with other technologies over many years. And I think you should see it as a continuation of that overall strategic path of developing new content, developing new datasets, applying new technology, and that's what's driving the improving growth trajectory you're seeing in legal and STM in particular.
Your second question was on STM, and I think you're referring to one particular contract and customer, and, as you know, I won't comment specifically on that. But what I would say is that the key growth driver in primary research is the article volume growth. And that's over many years, is what's key to continually drive growth out of primary research. Changes in how customers buy from us, so whether they buy in consortia or they buy as in individual institutions, has not been a key factor on our revenue and how it develops. And you can see that from history, and you wouldn't expect it to suddenly become a significant factor. As I say, the key is the article volume growth.
And then your last question was on exhibitions and pricing. Yeah, as we do elsewhere in the group, the key for us in pricing is to reflect the value that we're providing customers. And so we actually don't necessarily just put through straight price increases for the same product, but we're also always looking to add more value. In the exhibitions in particular, at the moment, a lot of that is coming through the development of digital tools. We're looking to provide more value to customers and therefore get higher spend. But that doesn't necessarily mean charging a higher price or a different price to the, you know, for the same thing that we provided last year. It's about adding more value and capturing that value in our pricing.
Okay, thanks a lot.
We'll take now our next question from Steve Liechti from Numis. You can go ahead now.
Yeah. Morning, Nick. Just a couple from me. One, I hear what you're saying... These, these are both about events. I hear what you're saying about the like-for-like growth, which is great, on events. But can you sort of zero in on any specific regions, and we talked about China a bit, or verticals that are seeing macro pressure now, just, just to help us sort of try and unpick some of the macros against the sort of recovery phase? That's the first question. And the second question: Can you give us any harder data in terms of rebooking performance into 2024 when you're looking forward? I mean, and has there been any great trend between quarters as the year has progressed, and I guess the macros have got more difficult, in the overall economy? Thanks.
Well, our exhibitions overall, as we said in the statement, and we've been discussing, the recovery's been strong. And it obviously varies from event to event, but not particularly by geography, more with sector. And the strength of that recovery has been such that you can't really see any other underlying macro trends, and that includes in how we see behaviors for rebooking as well. So I see nothing really to call out for you.
Do you want to give us an actual, you know, rough figure for, for rebookings compared to previous years, or anything like that, above, below, or any, any sort of feel at all?
No, like, as I say, it's, there's nothing in our, in how the business is trending, or in future bookings, to indicate any change in overall trend.
Okay, thank you.
We take now our next question from Adam Berlin, from UBS. The line is open now. Thank you.
Hi, Nick. I missed the first question, so apologies if this was asked already. But you talked about good article, open access article growth in STM. Can you just break that down into how much of that is just being driven by sort of publish- and -read agreements, so you're not necessarily generating extra revenue from those articles, versus growth in APC-funded articles, where you're actually generating incremental revenues? That'd be really helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, it's... As I said earlier, yeah, yes, Open access is growing as a pay-to-publish basis rather than the more historic pay-to-read model is growing fast. And that's shifting the overall mix. But I wouldn't, if you're trying to turn that into what does that mean for revenue, you know, in the same way as what I said earlier about consortia and individual buying, the payment model, whether people are pay-to-read or pay-to-publish, indeed, whether they are part of subscription agreements or more on a transactional basis, and you can do both, of course, under subscription and both under a transactional basis, that has not been a key factor in our in how our revenue has developed.
And again, you can see that from the history. The key driver of the growth is in the overall volume, article volume. And as we said, that continues to progress well. So, I think you'd focus, if you focus on that overall, that will give you the right impression.
Okay. Thank you very much.
We currently have no questions coming through. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you can press star one now. We don't have further questions, so I will hand you back to you, Nick, to conclude today's conference.
Okay. Well, Alicia, thank you, and thanks for your questions. Thank you for joining the call today, and we'll see you for the final results in February.