Data firm Experian revenue rises on strong B2B market

(Reuters) - Experian <EXPN.L>, the world's largest credit data company, on Friday posted a 7% rise in third-quarter organic revenue, driven by increasing popularity of its analytics products for businesses.

The company, which competes with U.S. peers TransUnion <TRU.N> and Equifax <EFX.N>, said revenue from its North American market, rose 11% for the three months ended Dec. 31. The region accounts for more than half of Experian's sales.

Experian has benefited from an increased demand for its Ascend product, which is a platform that integrates client data, industry-specific data feeds and analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

The blue-chip company, which runs credit score checks for individuals and companies who seek to take out loans, currently has 27 million customers on its free membership platform in the United States and 42 million in Brazil.

Experian, which maintains credit information for 40 million active businesses in the U.S., saw a 11% rise in its B2B unit's organic revenue in the region.

The company said it saw strength in credit data volumes and mortgage in North America.

That helped offset falls of 13% and 3% in organic revenues from Experian's EMEA/Asia Pacific and UK & Ireland businesses, respectively.

"Across EMEA/Asia Pacific, we've seen growing pipelines for affordability, decisioning software and marketplace offers and we expect a return to growth in Q4 FY20," the company said.

(Reporting by Safia Infant in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Shailesh Kuber)