Ipsos steps up India investment

Ipsos, world's fifth-largest market research company, has stepped up its India investment.

The move comes amid talk of a possible buyout globally of rival Synovate, controlled by media buying group Aegis.

The latter has entered into exclusive talks with Paris-based Ipsos for a possible sale of Synovate, a business it considers non-core.

If the talks fructify, Ipsos' global turnover of $1.5 billion would cross $2 billion. The buyout would also help galvanise operations in markets such as India, where Synovate has a strong presence.

Ipsos' India head, Sonia Pall, a former Nielsen executive, says the country is increasingly becoming important for them.

She declined to disclose turnover of the Indian unit.

Ipsos came to India only in 2007, through a 75:25 joint venture with Indica, a Mumbai-based market research company.

This year, it acquired the balance 25 per cent stake in the joint venture.

Clients of Ipsos include Hindustan Unilever, Dabur, Nestle and GlaxoSmithKline.

With full control of the business now, Pall says attention will be devoted to ramping up operations, from 70 researchers to over 100

by the end of the year.

It has set up data processing centres at Delhi and Mumbai, places where it also has its offices.

Ipsos operates out of 14 locations in India, with key offices in Bengaluru and Chennai, apart from Mumbai and Delhi.

The firm is also looking to provide specialised services such as qualitative research, providing consumer insights as opposed to quantitative research, used to guage the performance of a brand or a marketing campaign.

Most key market research companies in India -- IMRB, Nielsen, TNS, Millward Brown, Synovate -- have both operations.

Pall says a small unit comprising 20 researchers has been set up to look into qualitative research needs of clients.

"This will be ramped up over time," she says.

Ipsos is also tapping into non-consumer product companies for research work.

"While consumer product clients are important, the research requirements of non-consumer product clients are also quite a bit," says Pall. "We are in the process of tying up some."

It already works with banks such as ICICI, apart from telecom companies such as Vodafone.