ESOMAR’s latest Global Market Research report values global research and data industry market at US $80 billion

The ESOMAR Global Market Research 2019 report shows that the market research sector has grown slightly from 2017 to 2018 and is now valued at over US $47bn for 2018 (it was $46 bn in 2017). The rate of growth has fallen for the traditionally defined industry, however the data analytics and insights counterpart is growing at a faster rate than global GDP, at around 10%. With both sides combined the annual global turnover for research and insights in 2018 was $80bn, (compared to $76 bn in 2017).  

The landscape has been quite challenging globally; with all regions showing negative growth in the traditionally defined industry, except for Asia Pacific (+3.7%), thanks to the excellent growth reported by China (+11.9%). North America remained stable at +0.1%, while the Middle East dropped at -9.2%, followed by Latin America at -2.7%. Africa, the highest-growing region in 2017, maintained its position in 2018 in absolute terms, however high levels of inflation in some of its markets reduced the positive trend to -1.2% in net terms. The relative positions of the top-5 countries (USA, UK, Germany, France and China) remained unchanged together with the relative weight of the world’s regions.

The five largest individual markets were:

Globally, the turnover devoted to quantitative research methods decreased from 81% in 2017, to 78% in 2018; while the share of qualitative research stayed at 14%, the same as in 2017.

Spend by sector

Just as in 2017, 50% of the global spend comes from three main sectors: consumer non-durables (CND), media and entertainment and pharmaceuticals. However, the share of spend per client type for each one of the regions varies substantially; although the CND sector was present as one of the 3 main contractors for each region, the pharmaceutical sector has also been particularly present in Europe (9%), North America (24%) and Asia Pacific (9%).

Overall, CND still accounts for 19% while media and entertainment together with pharmaceutical account for 16% of market research spend.

In the USA the situation remains fairly stable, with media and entertainment remaining predominant at 25%, while CND continued dropping to 10% (a 1% decline from 2017).

Growth for Top 10 companies

The top 10 research companies in 2018 now account for over 50% of the world’s market research turnover (compared to 49.6% in 2017) and a total revenue of US $23.77 bn. The top 10 largest companies in the insights space are:

Finn Raben, Director General of ESOMAR said of the findings “Despite forecasts that the research profession is in decline, this year’s Global Market Research report shows that our industry continued to grow in 2018, albeit a little more slowly. Promisingly, we see growth both from within the traditionally defined research sector, but also from the newer, expanded definition of our industry – continued evidence that the demand for actionable, evidence-based data and insight remains strong.”

About ESOMAR’s Global Market Research report

This study measures market research turnover of the industry at national, regional and global levels, and covers work conducted by market research companies or institutes. ESOMAR conducts the study in cooperation with BDO Accountants and Advisors. The data is provided by national market research associations, leading companies, independent analysts and ESOMAR Representatives around the world. Estimates have been validated by cross-checking between sources. When a country is not able to provide estimates on their industry either on time or at all, GDP growth derived estimates have been used to maintain the stability of the data and allow for like-for-like regional comparisons over time

All trends and developments are based on turnover in US dollars.  Absolute and net growth rates per country are based on turnover in local currencies for 2017 and 2018; for the net growth rates, turnover has been adjusted using the local inflation rates and IMF exchange rates for 2018.  For regional and global rates, the turnovers for 2017 and 2018 have been converted into US dollars using the 2018 exchange rate. 

Free for ESOMAR members, the report can be purchased by the wider public from ESOMAR Reports & Publications library