The rate of growth has fallen since last year when it was 2.3% after inflation – the fastest rate of growth since 2010. However, when combined with ‘newer’ research methodologies, such as data analytics, the annual global turnover for research and insight in 2017 was $76bn, compared with $71.5bn in 2016.  

There are regional differences with Europe the only market to see a decline as net growth fell to -0.4%. The UK grew by 0.3% although its share of the global market research market fell 17% to 14%.

The Middle East and Asia Pacific were the two fastest growing regions with the Middle East up 2.9% and Asia Pacific up 2.6% year on year.

Within APAC China continues to dominate with 6% growth. North America saw an improvement in growth from 1% in 2016 to 1.5% in 2017.

The five largest individual markets were:

Market            Turnover ($m)           % of global mrkt 

US                    20,230                                44

UK                   6,498                                   14

Germany        2,766                                    6

France            2,362                                     5

China              1,965                                     5

Finn Raben, director general of Esomar said: “Despite forecasts that the research profession is in decline, this year’s Global Market Research report shows that our industry continued to grow in 2017, 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.”