The American Marketing Association has published their annual report on the Top 50 U.S. Market Research Firms [PDF]. I was especially interested in analyzing the companies by growth rate.

Here’s a quadrant analysis dividing them by size and by growth rate. The Top 25 have U.S. revenues from $50 million for #25 Rentrak to $3.2 billion for #1 Nielsen, and the Bottom 25 have revenues from $17 million for #50 Chadwick Martin Bailey to $49 million for #26 Morpace. I define “Shrinking” as growing slower than the 2013 rate of inflation in the United States (1.5%) and “Growing” as growing faster than inflation.

Top 50 U.S. Research Firms
Sorted by size within each quadrant
Larger
(Top 25)
Kantar
Ipsos
Symphony Health
J.D. Power
ICF
Abt SRBI
Maritz
Harris Interactive
ORC International
Lieberman
Market Strategies
Nielsen
IMS Health
Westat
IRI
GfK
comScore
NPD
dunnhumbyUSA
Decision Resources
National Research
Communispace
Burke
Vision Critical
Rentrak
Smaller
(Bottom 25)
Directions Research
YouGov
Radius Global
Phoenix MI
Market Probe
KS&R
Pert Group
Perception Research
SSRS
MetrixLab
Affinnova
Informa Research
SMG
MV Research
MarketCast
NAXION
RDA Group
Gongos
Link Group
Bellomy Research
RTi Research
Kelton Global
CMB
Shrinking
(<= 1.5%)
Growing
(>1.5%)

 

It’s surprising how little buzz the fastest-growing companies have within the market-research social-media circles. When was the last time you read about Rentrak, Kelton GLobal, The Link Group, Bellomy Research, RTi Research, or MarketCast? Yet all grew over 20% annually.

Here are the companies sorted by their growth in U.S. revenue from 2013 to 2012:

Overall Rank Company Change
25 Rentrak 36.5%
49 Kelton Global 33.3%
45 Link Group 26.5%
47 Bellomy Research 25.9%
48 RTi Research 24.5%
39 MarketCast 20.7%
30 SSRS 19.2%
37 MV Research 15.8%
5 Westat 14.3%
50 CMB 13.6%
26 Morpace 13.5%
43 Gongos 12.9%
23 Burke 12.6%
33 Informa Research 12.3%
34 SMG 11.9%
8 comScore 10.5%
31 MetrixLab 10.0%
27 Market Force 9.9%
41 RDA Group 8.9%
29 Perception Research 8.6%
19 National Research 8.1%
32 Affinnova 8.1%
3 IMS Health 6.9%
22 Communispace 6.1%
9 NPD 5.5%
24 Vision Critical 3.9%
6 IRI 3.8%
1 Nielsen 3.7%
15 dunnhumbyUSA 2.9%
16 Decision Resources 2.4%
7 GfK 2.2%
40 NAXION 2.2%
2 Kantar 1.3%
17 Harris Interactive 0.9%
4 Ipsos 0.4%
28 Directions Research -0.5%
11 J.D. Power -0.6%
13 Abt SRBI -1.1%
21 Market Strategies -1.1%
10 Symphony Health -2.4%
35 YouGov -2.5%
36 Radius Global -4.5%
42 Market Probe -4.6%
44 KS&R -5.7%
18 ORC International -6.1%
38 Phoenix MI -6.3%
20 Lieberman -6.7%
14 Maritz -9.8%
12 ICF -10.0%
46 Pert Group -12.9%

 

Thanks as always to the American Marketing Association for publishing this useful guide. You can download it here: The 2014 AMA Gold Top 50 Report [PDF].

Author Notes:

Jeffrey Henning

Gravatar Image
Jeffrey Henning, IPC is a professionally certified researcher and has personally conducted over 1,400 survey research projects. Jeffrey is a member of the Insights Association and the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers. In 2012, he was the inaugural winner of the MRA’s Impact award, which “recognizes an industry professional, team or organization that has demonstrated tremendous vision, leadership, and innovation, within the past year, that has led to advances in the marketing research profession.” In 2022, the Insights Association named him an IPC Laureate. Before founding Researchscape in 2012, Jeffrey co-founded Perseus Development Corporation in 1993, which introduced the first web-survey software, and Vovici in 2006, which pioneered the enterprise-feedback management category. A 35-year veteran of the research industry, he began his career as an industry analyst for an Inc. 500 research firm.