This article is extracted from the 2020 Global Market Research report, where you can find the full Top-50 ranking. Considered a must-have in the professional’s toolbox, this year’s edition of the Global Market Research report includes a more complete picture of the insights industry that goes beyond established market research to systematically include the tech-enabled side of data and analytics. Get the full report here (free to ESOMAR members)

Enhancing the picture

The chapters of the 2020 Global Market Research report focus on the many (and very) diverse facets of what makes up the insights industry, and dives deep into several of the segments that make up the technology-enabled industry beyond the established players: digital data and analytics, vertical reports and research, consulting firms, social listening and communities, EFM and DIY research platforms.

The result is, perhaps, the most colourful picture yet created of the complex landscape of the insights industry: a portrayal that aims at including companies that until now would have been considered unrelated to the sector.

While previous iterations of the Top-10 listing of companies was measured within a legacy definition of the market, this year, ESOMAR’s new Global Top-50 listing includes the segment that the companies belong to, so that the reader is able to understand their link to the wider insights and data services sector. While this article only covers the first 25 companies, you can find the full Global Top-50 ranking in the 2020 Global Market Research report.

This ranking will remain under constant scrutiny from the industry, it will undergo regular testing and will apply whatever changes are deemed necessary to guarantee the relevance of the definitions used. This current design, however, provides an initial overview which we hope will provoke a more holistic and intuitive assessment of our sector.

 

The ranking in perspective

Despite the inclusion of a number of segments in the ranking, the top places in the list remain mostly populated by companies which, until last year, had belonged to ESOMAR’s historic Top-10 ranking. Nielsen, Gartner and IQVIA, take the podium positions of the Insights industry, followed by Adobe’s digital data analytics business, Kantar, whose revised financial statement has somewhat moderated what until now was a rather exaggerated turnover, Salesforce’s digital data analytics business, Ipsos, and IHS Markit. These companies represent a special list-of-8 with turnovers above US$ 2 billion, and are followed by a group of 4 companies recording turnover between US$ 1 and 2 billion, namely GfK, Costar, IRi and the insights-related turnover from McKinsey.

Overall, the Top-25 companies produced in 2019 insights-related revenue for a total of US$ 41.9 billion, equivalent to 46.60% of the total estimated turnover of the industry. Given their average growth rate of 9.05% – which clearly outpaces that of the entire market – the Global Top-25 companies are expected to continue to increase their share in upcoming years, unless they are hit excessively hard by the crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The remarkable growth rate displayed by the Global Top-25 companies has been primarily fuelled by Adobe with +31% turnover increase, positioning it in 4^th place, and Salesforce with +32%, in 6^th place, followed by QVIA with +7.6% growth, Gartner with +6.8%, and Kantar with +9.8% (in 3^rd, 2^nd and 5^th places respectively).

While showing an almost flat revenue growth of -0.3%, Nielsen managed to remain the undisputed leader of the Global Top-25 Insights companies. This growth rate was derived from a combination of a modest growth rate from its Total Audience Measurement system, which was eventually offset by pressure in local TV measurement. The company, which is expected to split in two by the end of 2020 – Global Media and Global Connect, the latter already sold – managed to present a positive growth rate of +1.7% on a constant currency basis.

The main factor behind Adobe’s growth was, partially, due to their acquisition of Magento in May of 2019 and Marketo in September of the same year, whereas for Salesforce the main driver was, purportedly, attributed to federal tax cuts that enabled it to focus its investment opportunities in their digital transformation.

IQVIA, exiting the third and last year of their merger integration from the old Quintiles and IMS Health, has enjoyed growth of +7.6% derived from successful contracts of their Orchestrated Customer Engagement platform for global deployment across more than 50 markets.

In the case of Gartner, a partial reason for its positive growth of +6.7% was due to their decision to undertake share buybacks, that way improving some of the companies’ financial indicators.

After Kantar announced in 2018 that it was open for external investors to take a stake in the company, speculations were confirmed when it was announced that private equity firm Bain would acquire 60% of the company. The momentous year for Kantar ended with a notable growth of +9.8% in revenue.

In the case of Ipsos, 2019 marked the year when the firm consolidated its position in the US$ 2 billion club, having reached it a year earlier – itself happening 10 years after having surpassed US$ 1 billion in revenue. The factors behind this positive performance were strong currency exchange rates, the company’s own strong annual performance as well as the acquisition of GfK’s Research and Synthesio segment. As a result, Ipsos ranked 7^th and reports a +8.5% growth rate.

Last in the group-of-2-billion is IHS Markit, which reported +5.6% growth rate which helped it jump over the barrier and become a member of this exclusive group.

 

The year ahead

The IMF forecasted in June that the global economy in 2020 will shrink by -4.9%; the World Bank forecasted in July that the global economy will shrink by -5.2%, but both organisations believe that all economies will grow in 2021. However, there is no guarantee i) that all healthcare systems will be adequately resourced, and ii) that all national economies will be able to manage the predicted increases in unemployment and social welfare costs.

As forecasted by the contributors to the 2020 Global Market Research report, local markets could shrink during 2020 by as much as 15 to 20%, a gloomy prospect which reinforces the earlier observations reported in ESOMAR’s Insights in times of COVID-19 report. Since any growth forecasted for 2021 is lower than the decline forecasted for this year, it is sensible to assume that it will take at least two years for the sector to return to the economic levels of pre-COVID.

Clearly, next year’s report will be a very interesting one, to see how the companies will have managed to adapt to a very turbulent 2020. While generalised reports from commentators and industry analysts around the world suggest an undeniable impact from the economic downturn brought about by the pandemic, it remains to be seen through which methods companies tried to alleviate the blow, and which services contributed most to their overall performance.

We will continue to review this list in order to improve the overview of the activities that affect, and ultimately define, the Insights industry. Should you feel that there is room for changes in this list, we would be glad to consider your ideas and discuss further through industrysurvey@esomar.org.

1 Nielsen

2 Gartner

3 IQVIA

4 Adobe Systems

5 Kantar

6 Salesforce.com

7 Ipsos

8 IHS Markit

9 GfK

10 Costar Group

11 IRi

12 McKinsey & Company

13 Accenture

14 Booz Allen Hamilton

15 NICE Systems

16 Cision

17 Dynata

18 HubSpot

19 PwC

20 KPMG

21 Ernst & Young

22 Oracle

23 Wood Mackenzie

24 Qualtrics

25 Abt Associates