By Simon Zekaria 

LONDON-- Pearson PLC is increasingly confident of the company's prospects despite enduring a difficult 2014.

The U.K. publisher on Friday said it expects sales this year, excluding acquisitions and disposals, to increase for the first time in five years amid a recovery of its core education markets, including the U.S. The company has also completed a two-year restructuring plan which has hit Pearson's earnings but saved the business hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Last year was every bit as tough as we thought it would be," said Chief Executive John Fallon.

Pearson, which publishes the salmon-colored Financial Times newspaper, said its 2014 net profit fell to GBP470 million ($724 million) from GBP538 million the prior year. Adjusted operating profit, before restructuring charges, fell 5% to GBP720 million, in line with company forecasts. Sales fell 4% to GBP4.87 billion, in line with market forecasts, with North America revenues down 3%.

Still, Mr. Fallon said he is confident about the company's prospects, which generates about 60% of its sales in North America and three-quarters of its revenue from education.

"It feels like we have now passed a tipping point," he said. "This year we expect to grow again very healthily and we expect to sustain that growth in future years."

It expects to report adjusted earnings per share of between 75 pence and 80 pence in 2015, up from 66.7 pence this year. Pearson has proposed a fiscal-year dividend of 51 pence a share, up 6% from a year earlier.

At 1234 GMT, Pearson shares were up 1.9% to 1,422 pence. Analysts at Numis Securities said the results are in line with expectations and noted the company sees the benefits of its overhaul coming through.

Mr. Fallon said policy and curriculum changes in the U.S. and the U.K. education systems had made life difficult for Pearson in recent years, but those markets are set to recover.

"We are starting to feel more optimistic about life in the U.S.," said Mr. Fallon, noting that college enrollment increases in the early years of a recession before declining as the economy recovers and job seekers enter the market.

"The cyclical and policy related factors that have held us back in the U.S. over the last couple of years are easing. They will stabilize this year and then will start to improve in 2016."

Amid flagging Western education markets, the company is bolstering its global presence with language schools across high-growth international economies such as China and South Africa, where learning among the middle class is booming.

And the company's core services are increasingly online. Ten years ago, two-thirds of what Pearson made and sold was in print, but now the same proportion of its business is a digital service, such as running English language courses online. In 2014, 11 million students in the U.S. took the company's tests on mobile phones, tablets or laptops.

The FT grew its circulation by 10% year-over-year to almost 720,000 across print and online. Digital subscriptions rose 21% to almost 504,000--70% of the FT's total paying audience.

"The shift to digital is more than offsetting the structural declines in print content and advertising," Mr. Fallon said.

For the Economist Group, in which Pearson has a noncontrolling 50% share, currency effects hit performance, but the circulation of the Economist magazine remains "robust" at 1.6 million, Pearson said.

"We are happy with our stake in the Economist at this time, and it delivers a good economic return to Pearson, but clearly it doesn't command the same sort of synergies with the rest of Pearson that the FT does because we don't control it and so we can't engage it in our strategy in the way that we would like," Mr. Fallon said in an interview.

Asked whether Pearson would like to take control of the Economist Group, which is now controlled by several family and individual shareholders, Mr. Fallon said, "I don't think that opportunity presents itself."

News Corp, which owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, competes with Pearson's book publishing, business-news and education divisions.

The London-based group also appointed Coram Williams, chief financial officer of book publisher Penguin Random House--a joint venture in which Pearson has a 47% stake--as its new CFO. Mr. Williams will start the role on Aug. 1, replacing Robin Freestone, whose departure was announced last year.

Pearson declined to comment on reports that its longstanding chairman, Glen Moreno, is set to leave toward the end of this year after a decade in the role. "Glen very much remains the chairman of Pearson," Mr. Fallon said.

Write to Simon Zekaria at simon.zekaria@wsj.com

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