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.
| 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].