The 2009 Honomichl Top 50 Report

America’s top 50 research firms saw domestic revenues fall 3.5% to $8.61bn in 2009. 2009 non-US research revenue at $9.47bn represented 52.4% of the total generated, and was also down on the figure two years earlier ($9.81bn).

The Honomichl Top 50, published by the American Marketing Association magazine, Marketing News, is out. The headline is that America’s top 50 research firms saw domestic revenues fall 3.5% to $8.61bn in 2009. This compares with a 1.6% increase to $8.98bn in 2008. 2009 non-US research revenue at $9.47bn represented 52.4% of the total generated, and was also down on the figure two years earlier ($9.81bn).

The bad news: Revenue at Bellomy Research plummeted 25.7% to $12.4m, while at Harris Interactive – pending the effect of a series of recovery initiatives – revenue dropped 24.0% to $100.1m. Burke Inc. also saw a 23.4% decline in revenue to $38.9m.

The good news: high revenue growth was seen at online customer community developer Communispace (up 18.0% to $34.7m), and multi-screen measurement specialist Rentrak (up 22% to $14.4m), which yesterday reported a 91% drop in fourth-quarter profit.

What jumps out at me is that growth occurred in non-traditional and syndicated product suppliers. That should be a strong signal to the industry about the direction we should head in, right?

US revenue for the top 10 US agencies was:

US Rank Organization US Research Revenues($ millions) % change from 2008
1 Nielsen 2,298.0 3.0
2 Kantar 850.9 -10.4
3 IMS Health 801.1 -5.9
4 Westat 502.4 7.0
5 SymphonyIRI Group 441.7 -0.7
6 Arbitron 379.1 4.0
7 Ipsos 288.8 -7.3
8 GfK USA 288.5 -11.7
9 Synovate 214.5 -12.4
10 J.D. Power and Associates 164.4 -13.7

Rate of growth from year to year has been adjusted so as not to include revenue gains or losses from acquisitions or divestitures

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