The company said that many major companies, which make up the bulk of Ipsos’ client base, were ‘controlling’ their profitable growth, with tight management of their innovation policies and, in a new development, committing a stable or shrinking share of their revenues to their marketing budgets.

“As a result, marketing service providers — communication agencies, research companies, etc. — have seen growth rates drop below those seen prior to the crisis of 2008,” Ipsos said.

The company added: “The market research market itself is growing at a reduced pace, probably at under 3% in 2012 on the initial data Ipsos has collected, whereas growth of over 3% had been expected. The official figures will not be available until the end of the summer. There is no reason to expect its growth to pick up in 2013.”

The warning comes as Ipsos reported that it had seen year-on-year revenues drop on the first quarter of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012.

Q1 2013 saw revenues of €359.6m generated, a 5.3% decrease on the same period in 2012 and at constant scope and exchange rates, revenues were 2.7% lower.

However, new business sales rose by 2% which the company claimed indicated that, in line with its plan, Ipsos will generate higher revenue on a comparable basis in 2013 than in 2012.

With all business lines’ revenue down in the first quarter, marketing research and opinion and social research business saw the highest falls.

Marketing research was down from €196.9m in Q1 2012 to €184.1 in Q1 2013, a 6.5% year-on-year decrease and 3.5% down on organic growth.

Opinion and social research also saw a 6.5% fall from €37.8m to €35.3m, a 8% fall in organic growth.