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| Kantar IMRB | |
|---|---|
| Name | IMRB |
| Type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Market research |
| Founded | 1970s |
| Headquarters | Mumbai, India |
| Area served | Global |
| Parent | Kantar |
Kantar IMRB
Kantar IMRB is a market research and consultancy firm originally established in India with longstanding operations across Asia and global linkages to multinational research networks. The firm provides consumer insights, social research, and media evaluation to clients in sectors such as fast-moving consumer goods, telecommunications, financial services, and public policy. It has collaborated with major corporations, international agencies and academic institutions to inform strategy, product development and policy decisions.
Founded during the 1970s, the organisation emerged amid a period of industrial expansion in Mumbai alongside entities such as Tata Group, Reliance Industries, Hindustan Unilever, Godrej, and Birla conglomerates. Early projects intersected with initiatives by international bodies including the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Children's Fund, and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Over decades the firm navigated regulatory changes associated with the Reserve Bank of India era and economic liberalisation under leaders like Indira Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. Partnerships and acquisitions connected it to global networks involving companies such as WPP plc, Nielsen Holdings, Ipsos, GfK, and later the WPP group restructuring and global consolidation in market research. The organisation undertook social surveys in collaboration with state governments including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, and engaged with policy research centres such as the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations and National Sample Survey Office researchers.
Service offerings span quantitative and qualitative methodologies used by practitioners working with clients like Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, and Samsung Electronics. Capabilities include consumer panels, retail audits, brand tracking, media measurement, and online analytics comparable to methodologies used by YouGov, Comscore, Kantar Millward Brown, AC Nielsen, and IRI (company). The organisation employs techniques drawn from survey design used by Pew Research Center, psychometrics influenced by work at Stanford University and University of Chicago, and ethnographic methods practiced by teams familiar with frameworks from Harvard University and London School of Economics. It operates field networks akin to those of Gallup, Ipsos MORI, and Mintel, offering syndicated studies, customized research, and advisory services for innovation pipelines at firms like Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft.
The company functions as a subsidiary within a larger global research holding aligned to multinational parentage and investment patterns similar to transactions involving Kantar Group, WPP plc, and private equity firms such as Bain Capital and The Carlyle Group. Its governance has included boards with independent directors drawn from institutions such as Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Indian School of Business, Columbia Business School, and former executives from McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group. Legal and compliance work has referenced statutes and regulators like the Securities and Exchange Board of India and corporate structures comparable to multinational subsidiaries of Procter & Gamble and Unilever PLC.
Primary markets include India, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and selective projects in Africa and the Middle East, operating field offices and partnerships in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Colombo, Jakarta, Bangkok, Lagos, and Dubai. Global collaborations have linked the firm to networks in London, New York City, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Toronto, and Johannesburg, working with multinational clients including Amazon (company), Walmart, IBM, Google, and Meta Platforms, Inc. on cross-border consumer studies. Projects have involved comparative panels similar to those run by Euromonitor International, Statista, and World Economic Forum initiatives.
Noteworthy outputs include large-scale household consumption surveys, rural market penetration studies, public health assessments in collaboration with World Health Organization teams, and media audience measurement projects paralleling systems like BARB and Television Audience Measurement (TAM). The firm supplied evidence used in market entry strategies for companies such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, contributed to urbanisation and sanitation studies referenced alongside Swachh Bharat Abhiyan evaluations, and produced research cited in policy discussions with entities like the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (India), Ministry of Commerce and Industry (India), and development programmes co-funded by Asian Development Bank and International Monetary Fund. Academic citations of its work appear alongside studies from Indian Statistical Institute and university research centres at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The organisation and its teams have received industry awards and recognitions comparable to honours distributed by bodies such as the ESOMAR community, Market Research Society (UK), Indian Market Research Bureau peers, and regional business media like The Economic Times and Business Standard. Individual researchers have been shortlisted for contributions recognized by academic prizes at Indian Institutes of Technology and business school awards including those at IIM Bangalore and IIM Calcutta. The firm's methodological innovations have been showcased at international conferences hosted by ESOMAR, AAPOR, and WARC.
Category:Market research companies