19 Key Market Research Statistics for 2024

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.