Best Market Research Companies in 2026

Gartner sells subscription research, peer networks, conferences and consulting to executives across business functions. Its 2025 annual report records revenue of US$6,497.2m, up from US$6,267.4m in 2024. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, had 20,244 employees at 31 December 2025 and says it serves more than 13,000 enterprises in about 90 countries and territories. In 2025 it renamed its main segment from Research to Business and Technology Insights. Gartner's Magic Quadrant and Hype Cycle reports are widely used in technology purchasing. It is less relevant for consumer or product research, which is the focus of most firms on this list.

NIQ, formerly NielsenIQ, measures what consumers buy using retailer point-of-sale data, receipts, household panels and e-commerce partnerships. Its 2025 annual report records revenue of US$4,198.4m, up from US$3,972.6m in 2024, and gives its corporate headquarters as Chicago, Illinois. The company completed a combination with GfK SE on 10 July 2023 and listed through an initial public offering in July 2025. NIQ says its coverage spans 90 countries and about 82% of the world's population, and that it leases or owns property in about 206 locations across 81 countries. Its main clients are consumer goods manufacturers and retailers, which use its data for market share, pricing and promotion analysis.

Ipsos was founded in France in 1975 by Didier Truchot, who remains founder and honorary chair. It reported 2025 revenue of €2,524.7m, with organic growth of 0.6%, and a workforce of 18,925 at 31 December 2025. The company says it operates in 90 markets across 220 cities. Ipsos is primarily a custom research agency, running brand and advertising tests, customer-experience programmes, public-opinion polling, healthcare research and mystery shopping. In the third quarter of 2026 it reported revenue of €636.2m and organic growth of 2.0%, faster than in the first half of the year.

YouGov runs a large online research panel and sells survey, brand-tracking and audience-profiling products built on it. It reported revenue of £396.6m for fiscal 2026 (year to July 2026), up from £388.9m in fiscal 2025. The company says it has 30 million panel members. Its products include BrandIndex, which tracks brands daily across 16 metrics; Profiles, an audience-segmentation tool with an API; self-serve and managed surveys; and AI products such as the YouGov Voices interviewer and YouGov Parallax simulations. YouGov is also widely known for public political polling, particularly in the UK and US. Its strength is speed and standardised data rather than in-person fieldwork.

Forrester Research was incorporated in Massachusetts in July 1983 by George F. Colony, who remains chairman and chief executive. It reported 2025 revenue of US$396.9m, down from US$432.5m in 2024, and employed 1,474 people at the end of 2025, 1,034 of them in the US and Canada. Forrester sells subscription research, consulting and events focused on customer experience, marketing, sales and technology, and its Wave vendor evaluations compete with Gartner's Magic Quadrant. The company measures its business on contract value from renewable subscription products. Falling revenue over 2024–2025 reflects weaker demand for its research subscriptions.

Circana describes itself as built on the foundation of IRI and NPD, two long-established market information companies. It tracks sales of consumer packaged goods and general merchandise, reporting 42 million actively tracked items, 477,000 stores and US$5.8 trillion in global consumer spend, and says it has more than 7,000 clients and partners. Its main competitor is NIQ; the two firms supply most of the syndicated retail sales data used by large consumer goods companies in the United States. Circana's NPD heritage gives it particular depth in general merchandise categories such as toys, apparel, technology and video games. It does not publish revenue.

Dynata supplies survey respondents and data collection to research agencies, brands and consultancies. Its company history begins with SSI, founded in 1977, which merged with Research Now in 2017; the combined company rebranded as Dynata in 2019, when it reported reaching 70 million panelists globally. Many research agencies, including some on this list, buy sample from Dynata rather than recruiting respondents themselves, so its role is often invisible to the end client. It also offers survey programming, hosting and audience data for advertising. Dynata does not publish revenue, and buyers evaluating sample providers typically test response quality and fraud controls on pilot projects.

Euromonitor International publishes syndicated market sizes, forecasts, company shares and consumer trend analysis, principally through its Passport database. The company is privately owned and says it has more than 50 years of history, 16 offices and on-the-ground analysts in more than 100 countries, with clients in 110 countries. Its standard product is a subscription to consistent market-size data across categories and countries, which is used for strategy, market-entry and investment work. It also takes custom consulting projects. Because it relies on desk research, trade interviews and modelled estimates rather than point-of-sale feeds, its figures are better suited to strategic sizing than to week-by-week sales tracking.

Kantar is a marketing data and analytics group with a global office in London, which says it has 12,000 colleagues across more than 70 markets. Its work centres on brand tracking and brand valuation, advertising testing, consumer panels and custom research for marketers; its BrandZ rankings of brand value are widely reported. It does not publish revenue.

Mintel Group describes itself as a global market intelligence and research agency. Its products include Global New Products Database (GNPD), which tracks consumer product launches and their claims and ingredients, consumer survey-based reports, trend analysis, market sizing through Market Dynamics, and field services. Food, drink, beauty and household-goods companies use GNPD for innovation benchmarking, and its subscription reports are widely held by universities and libraries as well as companies. Mintel does not publish revenue, and its custom research capability is smaller than that of the large agencies.

Nielsen describes itself as a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, measuring behaviour across channels and platforms, and says it connects with audiences in more than 55 markets. Its ratings are the currency used to buy and sell much US television and streaming advertising, and its cross-platform measurement products combine panel data with set-top box and streaming data. Funds managed by Advent International acquired Nielsen's consumer and retail measurement business in March 2021, and that business now operates as NIQ, so the two names refer to different companies. Nielsen does not publish revenue.