London — Pearson, the world’s largest education company, on Monday reported a 7% decline in comparable sales for the first nine months of the year amid a bigger-than-expected slowdown in the key US market for textbooks. The stock dropped. Sales excluding the effect of currencies and one-time items declined because of falling testing revenue in the US and UK and weaker demand for higher-education courseware in North America, the London-based company said in a statement. Revenue in North America shrank 9%. "Sales in our largest business, US higher education, are down due to cautious buying patterns from key retailers," Pearson CEO John Fallon said on a conference call with reporters. "This is an industrywide issue" and is expected to be a temporary phenomenon over the next six to nine months, Fallon said. Pearson gets almost all its profit from education after selling the Financial Times and its half of the Economist Group last year. The company announced a reorganisation in January t...
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