Revenue was up £303,860 – or 9.8% – to £3.39m for the period, from £3.08m the previous year. The result continues B2B’s unbroken run of growth since it was formed in 1998.

Financial director Matthew Harrison (pictured) said: “2009 was a challenging time throughout the market research sector. Budgets in some industries were cut and some of our clients were forced to delay projects due to the economic uncertainty. However, the main trend in 2009 was a change in the type of business we conducted. Many clients moved away from international market assessment studies towards more ‘defensive’ research such as customer satisfaction surveys.”

Harrison said that this trend started to reverse towards the end of the year and by early in 2010 the firm was seeing “huge interest” in its Chinese and wider Asian offerings.

Managing director Nick Hague added that there had been “a significant upturn in enquiries and commissions” since September 2009 and that clients in Europe, North America and Asia were starting to feel “positive about the future”.