Excel - Microsoft Excel VARP Function

Description

The Excel VARP function returns the Variance of a given set of values. 

The syntax of the function is : 

VARP( number1, [number2], ... ) 

Where the number arguments provide a minimum of 2 numerical values to the function. You can enter up to 254 number arguments to the Varp function in Excel 2007 or Excel 2010, but you can only enter up to 30 number arguments in Excel 2003. 

Note that the Varp function is used when calculating the variance of an entire population. If your data is just a sample of the population (eg. if your data set records the individual heights of a sample of UK males), you need to use the Excel Var or the Excel Var.S function. 

Note also, that the Varp function ignores text values and logical values if these are supplied as part of an array. However, if they are supplied directly to the function, text representations of numbers and logical values are interpreted as numbers. If you want a population variance function that does not ignore text and logical values that are supplied as a part of an array, consider using the Varpa function. 

A company keeps a record of its monthly sales figures, over the last three years. These are stored in cells B3 - B14, D3 - D14 and F3 - F14 of the example spreadsheet on the right. 

The variance of the three years' sales figures is calculated in cell H3 of the spreadsheet. 

The formula for this, as shown in the formula bar, is : 

=VARP( B3:B14, D3:D14, F3:F14 ) 

As shown in cell H3, the variance for the 3 years of sales figures is 6,170,524.69. 

Other Argument Types

The example above shows the arguments to the Varp function being input in the form of 3 cell ranges. However, you can also input figures directly, as individual numbers or number arrays. 

For example, if, during January and February 2012 the sales figures are 13,000 and 14,500 we can add these directly into the above function as follows: 

Either as individual numbers: 

=VARP( B3:B14, D3:D14, F3:F14, 13000, 14500 ) 

Or, as an array of numbers: 

=VARP( B3:B14, D3:D14, F3:F14, {13000,14500} ) 

This gives the updated variance of 5,930,921.05. 

Varp Function Errors

If you get an error from the Excel Varp Function, this is likely to be the #DIV/0! error: 

Common Errors