19 Key Market Research Statistics

Market research is a growing multi-billion-dollar industry.

Brands leverage market research insights to introduce customer-focused offerings and improve their experiences.

From mobile-first surveys to social media analytics, researchers have access to a growing toolkit helping companies make data-driven business decisions.

Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll find on this page:

• Market Research Industry Statistics
• Market Research Methods Statistics
• AI in Market Research Statistics

Market Research Statistics (Highlights)

• The global market research industry is forecasted to bring in $140 billion in revenue in 2024.
• Online/mobile quantitative research services accounted for 35% of worldwide revenues of market research companies.
• Around 47% of researchers worldwide state that they use AI regularly in their market research activities.
• Online surveys rank as the most used quantitative method among market research professionals with 85% of respondents who say they use this method regularly.
• Online in-depth interviews with webcams rank as the most used qualitative research method, with over one-third (34%) of researchers using it regularly.

1. Market Research Industry Statistics

This section presents key statistics to show market research industry revenues, leading players in the industry and revenue breakdown by market research services.

• Global market research industry forecasted to generate $140 billion in revenue in 2024 (up from $130 billion in 2023) – ESOMAR
  

  

  Note: Includes data from multiple sources (ESOMAR 1, ESOMAR 2, ESOMAR 3, Consultancy.org)

  Year	Market research industry revenue (worldwide)
  2016	$71.5 billion
  2017	$78 billion
  2018	$81 billion
  2019	$88 billion
  2021	$102 billion
  2022	$118 billion
  2023	$130 billion
  2024	$140 billion

• Between 2021 and 2024, the market research industry grew by 37.25% from $102 billion to $140 billion – ESOMAR
• When ranked by market research turnover, the US market leads the ranking with $48 billion, followed by the UK ($9.1 billion) and China ($2.88 billion) – ESOMAR

  Note: Data as of 2021

  Country	Market Research Turnover
  United States	$48 billion
  United Kingdom	$9.1 billion
  China	$2.88 billion
  India	$2.2 billion
  France	$2.12 billion
  Germany	$2.11 billion
  Japan	$2.04 billion
  Australia	$753 million
  Canada	$606 million
  Italy	$586 million
  Spain	$555 million
  South Korea	$507 million

• Gartner holds the top position as the highest-earning company in the market research field with $5.48 billion in research revenue in 2022, followed by IQVIA ($5.43 billion) and Salesforce ($4.52 billion) – Statista
  

  

  Company	Research Revenue (2022)
  Gartner	$5.48 billion
  IQVIA	$5.43 billion
  Salesforce	$4.52 billion
  Adobe Systems	$4.42 billion
  Nielsen	$3.55 billion
  Kantar	$2.72 billion
  Ipsos	$2.53 billion
  Circana (IRI+NPD)	$2.21 billion
  CoStar Group	$2.18 billion
  S&P Global (IHS Markit)	$1.97 billion

• Online/mobile quantitative research services contributed 35% to the worldwide revenue of market research companies in 2022. Other major revenue contributors include reporting (20.2%), online traffic/web analytics (9.7%), online/mobile qualitative research (6%) – Statista

  Type of Market Research Service	Revenue Share
  Online/mobile quantitative research	35%
  Reporting	20.2%
  Online traffic/web analytics	9.7%
  Online/mobile qualitative research	6%
  Telephone CAITI	3.6%
  Online research communities	2.8%
  Social media monitoring	2.7%
  Automated digital/electronic	2.7%
  Face-to-face group discussions/focus groups	2.6%
  Face-to-face	2%
  In-depth face-to-face interviews	2%
  Other qualitative	1.7%
  Other quantitative	1.7%
  Audience measurement	0.9%
  Traditional ethnography	0.8%
  Other	0.4%

2. Market Research Methods Statistics

There’s a growing number of market research methods from traditional surveys to eye tracking available to market research professionals. In this section, we’ll cover recent stats on most used market research methods.

• According to a survey, 87% of market researchers worldwide state that at least half of their qualitative research is carried out remotely or online – Qualtrics
  

  

  Region	Qualitative Research Conducted Online (50% or more)
  Asia-Pacific and Japan	84%
  Europe, Middle East and Africa	85%
  Latin America	90%
  North America	87%

• Online surveys rank as the most used quantitative method among market research professionals with 85% of respondents who claim they use this method regularly, followed by mobile surveys (47%) and proprietary panels (32%) – Statista

  Quantitative Method	Share of Researchers Who Use Regularly
  Online surveys	85%
  Mobile surveys	47%
  Proprietary panels	32%
  Online communities	26%
  CATI	13%
  Face-to-face	12%
  CAPI	10%
  Automated measures/people meters	7%
  Mail	4%
  IVR	4%
  Neuroscience measurements	4%
  Biometrics	3%
  Other quantitative techniques	16%

• Among qualitative methods, online in-depth interviews with webcams (34%) and online focus groups with webcams (28%) are most commonly used among researchers – Statista

  Qualitative Method	Share of Researchers Who Use Regularly
  Online IDis with webcams	34%
  Online focus groups with webcams	28%
  Online communities	28%
  Mobile	20%
  In person IDIs	16%
  In person focus groups	14%
  Telephone IDIs	13%
  Bulletin board studies	11%
  In-store/shopping observations	11%
  Chat (text-based) online focus groups	10%
  Other qualitative methods	10%
  Chat (text-based) online IDIs	7%
  Monitoring blogs	7%
  Automated interviewing via AI systems	5%
  Telephone focus groups	3%

• By survey type, nearly half of market research spending (43.8%) was used on customer satisfaction (16.4%), market measurement (15%), user experience surveys (12.4%) – Statista

  Survey Method	Share of Spending
  CRM Systems/Customer Satisfaction	16.4%
  Market measurement	15%
  User experience	12.4%
  Usage and behavioral studies	11%
  (Media) Audience research	10.3%
  New product/service development	9.3%
  Opinion survey/polling	5%
  Omnibus/cost-sharing surveys	5%
  Advertising/brand tracking	4.6%
  Employee satisfaction	2.5%
  Ad pre-test	1.9%
  Business-to-business research	1.8%
  Market modeling	1.4%
  Non-profit research	0.9%
  Mystery Shopping	0.5%
  Other	1.9%

• Nearly 6-in-10 (57.2%) survey responses worldwide were submitted from mobile devices in Q3 2023. That’s a slight increase from 56.2% in Q3 2021 – SurveyMonkey
  

  

  Date	Mobile	Non-Mobile
  Q4 2020	52.0%	44.7%
  Q1 2021	52.1%	44.7%
  Q2 2021	53.0%	43.8%
  Q3 2021	56.2%	41.1%
  Q4 2021	55.3%	41.6%
  Q1 2022	55.0%	41.5%
  Q2 2022	56.1%	40.6%
  Q3 2022	58.2%	38.7%
  Q4 2022	56.9%	39.9%
  Q1 2023	54.7%	40.4%
  Q2 2023	55.1%	40.3%
  Q3 2023	57.2%	38.6%

• In the US mobile survey responses accounted for 47.6% of all survey responses (vs. 48.2% on non-mobile devices) in Q3 2023 – SurveyMonkey

  Date	Mobile	Non-Mobile
  Q4 2020	39.7%	55.7%
  Q1 2021	40.7%	54.9%
  Q2 2021	39.7%	56.0%
  Q3 2021	41.8%	54.5%
  Q4 2021	41.8%	53.5%
  Q1 2022	42.0%	52.9%
  Q2 2022	43.4%	51.8%
  Q3 2022	44.7%	51.3%
  Q4 2022	43.9%	51.4%
  Q1 2023	43.7%	50.2%
  Q2 2023	45.1%	49.7%
  Q3 2023	47.6%	48.2%

• On average, online surveys hosted on one of the platforms included 11 questions in 2023. That’s down from 11.8 questions in 2019 – SurveyMonkey

  Year	Average Number of Questions
  2010	12.1
  2011	12.0
  2012	11.8
  2013	11.5
  2014	11.5
  2015	13.0
  2016	13.1
  2017	13.2
  2018	12.2
  2019	11.8
  2020	10.2
  2021	10.5
  2022	10.7
  2023	11.0

• More than half (54%) of online surveys feature 5 or fewer questions per page – SurveyMonkey
  

  

  Number of Questions Per Survey Page	Share of Surveys
  1 or fewer	7%
  >1 to 2	14%
  >2 to 3	13%
  >3 to 4	11%
  >4 to 5	9%
  >5 to 6	7%
  >6 to 7	6%
  >7 to 8	5%
  >8 to 9	4%
  >9 to 10	5%
  More than 10	18%

• More than 6-in-10 (62%) researchers say that their “company depends on their research and insights significantly” – Qualtrics
• A majority of researchers have reported an increase in their budgets allocated for customer experience (CX) research (53%), consumer trends (52%), UX research (51%), qualitative research (51%) and brand strategy (50%) – Qualtrics

3. AI in Market Research Statistics

AI is disrupting nearly every industry and job function. Market research is no exception and there are various AI use cases to apply in the everyday work of market researchers. We’ll explore the latest stats on AI adoption rate among market researchers in this section.

• Around 47% of researchers worldwide claim that they use AI regularly in their market research activities – Qualtrics

  

• The share of AI adopters among researchers varies depending on the region, with the highest usage in Asia-Pacific & Japan (58%) and the lowest in North America (39%) – Qualtrics

  Region	Share of Researchers Who Regularly Use AI
  Asia-Pacific and Japan	58%
  Europe, Middle East and Africa	51%
  Latin America	51%
  North America	39%

• The vast majority (73%) of researchers worldwide claim they’re “very confident” or “extremely confident” on how to apply AI to their market research activities – Qualtrics
• Around 1-in-4 researchers state they’re concerned about AI impact outpacing their personal or team skills – Qualtrics

Conclusion

That’s it for my list of market research statistics.

While market research has been around for a while, it has been undergoing constant transformation. It will be interesting to see how AI impacts market research projects.

We update this list of statistics from time to time so feel free to check it later for new insights.