Daniel Slotta
Research expert covering Greater China
Nielsen Holdings - statistics & facts
Headquartered in New York City, Nielsen Holdings is a global market research company with operations in over 100 countries. The company specializes in measurement and data analytics across the media, advertising, retail, and consumer goods industries. The total revenue accumulated by Nielsen in 2021 amounted to 3.5 billion U.S dollars, and when broken down by region more than half of this was generated in the United States.
This made Nielsen the fifth largest market research company worldwide and the second leading market research company in the United States.
In October 2022, Nielsen Holdings was sold to a private equity consortium led by Elliott Investment Management and Brookfield Business Partners. This transition resulted in Nielsen becoming a private company and, as a result, the company has ceased to publish its annual financial results.
A global competitor of the company that is also based in the United States is Gartner Inc. The company reported almost 6.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2024. IQVIA, who had the highest global revenue worldwide in 2021, ranked below Nielsen in the leading market research companies in the United States, however still accrued a significant research revenue in the North American country.
Following the private buy-out of the company in 2022, Nielsen has focused on its new cross-platform audience measurement tool, Nielsen ONE, and to reorganize internally into three distinct divisions: audience measurement, analytics, and Gracenote/ACR.
In October 2022, Nielsen Holdings was sold to a private equity consortium led by Elliott Investment Management and Brookfield Business Partners. This transition resulted in Nielsen becoming a private company and, as a result, the company has ceased to publish its annual financial results.
A global competitor of the company that is also based in the United States is Gartner Inc. The company reported almost 6.3 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2024. IQVIA, who had the highest global revenue worldwide in 2021, ranked below Nielsen in the leading market research companies in the United States, however still accrued a significant research revenue in the North American country.
Nielsen is a household name in the U.S. market
In 1984, the company was purchased by the Dun & Bradstreet Company, who ten years later separated out the company’s television ratings services into a new company, Nielsen Media Research. This company was then acquired by Dutch publishing company VNU in 1999. In 2001, VNU also acquired the remainder of the AC Nielsen Company, and recombined the businesses. Following a series of restructures, divestments, and a change of ownership, VNU was renamed as The Nielsen Company in 2006, and operated as a private company until listing itself on the New York Stock exchange in 2011. Contributing to its established reputation, Nielsen boasted a workforce of about 6,200 full-time employees in the United States in 2021. The number of full-time employees at Kantar, another U.S. based competitor, was less than half of that in the same year.Following the private buy-out of the company in 2022, Nielsen has focused on its new cross-platform audience measurement tool, Nielsen ONE, and to reorganize internally into three distinct divisions: audience measurement, analytics, and Gracenote/ACR.
Decreasing cost of revenue
Since 2015, Nielsen Holdings decreased their cost of revenue significantly. This indicated that, along with a decreasing number of employees, the company cut back on the total cost of delivering their services to consumers. When coupled with the decreasing assets of Nielsen Holdings, this was signifying the eventual sale to a private equity consortium.
