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Market Share Leaders by Segment

B2B Trade Publishing

  • B2B Trade Publishing continues to be a slower-growing market segment, with 5.5 percent growth in 2006 over 2005, ranking ninth by growth rate and slightly less than the total information industry growth of 5.8 percent.
  • Reed Business Information (RBI), a global company, typifies the growth pattern of this segment’s key players. Print, which makes up 47 percent of RBI revenue, fell 2 percent; online (17 percent of revenue) grew 31 percent; and events (36 percent of revenue) grew 6 percent. The combination of these three media types creates 6.4 percent net total growth despite falling print revenue. Informa’s 2006 revenue growth is dominated by IIR, the major events company it acquired in August 2005, which contributed $282 million in B2B trade revenue in 2006.
  • The outlook for B2B Trade Publishing is for steady, moderate growth over the next three years. Print advertising growth here will be negative while online advertising will grow at double-digit rates and make up an increasingly large share of the total segment revenue, passing events’ share growing at mid-single digits.

Top 10 Companies – B2B Trade Publishing
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)


Source: Outsell’s Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

Company Information

  • Providers of information about companies and their executives grew faster than the rate of the total industry, with 7.0 percent growth over 2005, ranking sixth by growth rate and 1.2 percentage points more than total information industry growth.
  • The largest provider, Experian, grew via significant acquisitions in the fastgrowing e-mail marketing sector, which compensated for its growth struggles in traditional company data. No. 3 infoUSA's 5.8 percent growth was also aided by acquisitions, while No. 5 Acxiom's 5.3 percent growth was completely organic. Two of D&B's three divisions drove its revenue growth: E-Business Solutions (Hoover's) and Supply Management (sales performance solutions services), a combined 26 percent of revenue, grew 28 percent and 25 percent, respectively. Sales & Marketing Solutions (lists and custom data files), 74 percent of D&B revenue, grew 7 percent.
  • Social networking and communities address a powerful human need, and Company Information providers will increasingly tap into this for growth. Start-up companies such as LinkedIn, Visible Path, Spoke, Jigsaw, and Generate, Inc. will increasingly use communities as sources of contacts. Hoover's is an example of an established player partnering with a newcomer, in this case Visible Path, to add this power to traditional services.

Top 10 Companies – Company Information
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)


Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

Credit & Financial Information

  • The Credit & Financial (C&F) segment continues to experience robust growth that exceeds the performance of the broader information industry. With average growth for the top 10 vendors at 8.5 percent, the segment performed well above other major areas of the information industry.
  • Reuters ceded the No. 1 spot to Bloomberg in 2006. The key out-performers - all with double-digit growth in 2006 - were Bloomberg, Moody's, and Experian (recently floated by owner Great Universal Stores), demonstrating that success here occurred across more than one niche.
  • The above-average performance of companies in different sector niches, such as ratings agencies, financial information, and consumer credit, bodes well for the C&F segment as a whole. Few companies recorded growth lower than 5 percent over 2005, and none indicated that revenues had fallen.

Top 10 Companies – Credit & Financial Information
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)

Top 10 Companies – Credit & Financial Information Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)
Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

Education & Training

  • The Education & Training segment lagged behind overall industry growth at 5.3 percent in 2006. The top 10 firms represent 41.4 percent of the total revenues of $40 billion for this segment. Revenues for the top 10 firms grew at 7.8 percent, ahead of growth for the segment, driven in large part by acquisitions.
  • Pearson is the strong No. 1 in market share with an estimated $5.7 billion in revenues, nearly double the educational revenues of McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (No. 2) and more than double those of Thomson Learning (No. 3). Acquisitions in publishing, testing, certification, and systems supported Pearson's growth in 2006.
  • Continued strong focus on educational performance standards and the related use of assessment and supplemental programs helped drive growth in K-12 markets, even as traditional textbook markets lagged behind. In the US, a smaller K-12 textbook adoption market in 2006 is expected to improve substantially in the 2007 cycle; in Europe, promised curriculum changes and increased focus on vocational education will create new opportunities. In higher education, pricing issues continue to drive demand for innovation in textbook markets, with publishers testing growth opportunities in customizable textbooks, sales of smaller content modules, audio products, and online tools. Workplace performance enhancement, especially in business fundamentals (i.e., "soft skills") will continue to drive strong growth in corporate and government-sector training.

Top 10 Companies - Education & Training
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)

Top 10 Companies – Education & Training Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)
Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

Legal, Tax & Regulatory

  • The Legal, Tax & Regulatory segment grew 6.8 percent in 2006, slightly ahead of the overall information industry. The top three firms represent almost 70 percent of the segment's total 2006 revenues of $12.6 billion. Revenues for these three firms grew at 8 percent, far ahead of growth for the rest of the segment.
  • Thomson Legal & Regulatory dominates in market share with an estimated $3.7 billion in 2006 revenues, followed by Wolters Kluwer nv and Reed Elsevier's LexisNexis Group. While all are close competitors, Thomson and LexisNexis Group are most directly competitive in Legal & Regulatory markets, whereas Wolters Kluwer is the leader to beat in Tax & Accounting.
  • Market leaders found growth along common themes: further penetration of international markets with regional online products, development focus on workflow applications, and expansion into adjacent market spaces. Other independent and smaller publishers otherwise sought growth in niche areas, with regional specialists better positioned to leverage their portfolios vis-à-vis the Big Three than larger, more generalized firms in the US.

Top 10 Companies - Legal, Tax & Regulatory
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)


Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

Market Research, Reports & Services

  • Market Research, Reports & Services (MRRS) outpaced overall industry growth in 2006 at 8.9 percent. The top 10 MRRS firms hold 49.9 percent of the $28.0 billion in revenues for this segment. Revenues for the top 10 firms grew a strong 9.9 percent, ahead of the total industry and in line with total segment growth.
  • VNU is the market share leader, with TNS and IMS Health neck and neck in second and third places. The top 10 players all held their relative market share positions in 2006, although most are growing faster than the top two, VNU and TNS.
  • Real-time data gathering and online market research technologies are transforming this segment and creating expectations for faster results and lower costs, while globalization is creating growth opportunities. Media, advertising, and marketing measurement is a hot spot, as is research in the Healthcare segment.

Top 10 Companies - Market Research, Reports & Services
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)

Top 10 Companies – Market Research, Reports & Services
Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

IT & Telecom Research, Reports & Services

  • The IT & Telecom Research, Reports & Services segment performed ahead of the overall industry with 9 percent growth in 2006. The top 10 firms led this segment with 73.9 percent of the total revenues of $2.6 billion. Revenues for the top 10 firms grew a healthy 9.8 percent, the same pace as the MRRS segment and ahead of the total information industry.
  • Gartner dominates as the market share leader, followed by IDC and Forrester. The newly combined Datamonitor/Butler/Ovum took over sixth place, displacing AMR which dropped to seventh. Analysys took eighth place, pushing Yankee to ninth. Burton Group also hit the Top 10 for the first time. TowerGroup and Current Analysis always hover around No. 10; in this preliminary estimate they are just below the Top 10.
  • Gartner leads the market, with its price increases creating a nice umbrella for the rest of the market. Gartner and other firms are expected to announce new rolebased products in 2007. Competition in the enterprise research space is heating up with the Datamonitor/Butler/Ovum combination and with Yankee showing signs it will gather steam in 2007. Alternative pricing and packaging, albeit innovative and interesting, is not affecting companies that are based on the traditional research and advisory business model.

Top 10 Companies - IT & Telecom Research, Reports & Services
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)


Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

News Providers & Publishers

  • News publishers worldwide ran into a wall in 2006. Declining print circulation coupled with flat-lining print ad revenues resulted in flat growth of 0.5 percent. The top 10 news publishers took in news-related revenues of $35.5 billion, an increase of 5.8 percent over 2005. Most of that change is attributable to The McClatchy Company's purchase of Knight Ridder, which had ranked No. 7 on the list, vaulting McClatchy into the top 10.
  • Market-share leader Gannett and the Japanese dailies all managed to show growth around 2 percent. Tribune, DMGT, and Trinity Mirror all posted year-over-year declines, with deeper circulation and advertising downturns to blame. All of the top 10 experienced good online advertising growth in the 20-35 percent range. These revenues helped offset print declines but couldn't produce inflation-beating revenue growth.
  • In 2007, the challenges facing news publishers over the past several years will deepen, and we expect to see intensified restructuring and cost-cutting. Circulation losses show no sign of abating, given younger readers' move online. Advertisers' choices - and their ability to measure placement effectiveness - challenge an industry built on cost-per-thousand ad models. Online ad growth is expected to slow to around 20 percent at best. Further acquisition and development of ad-based news and non-news sites and businesses are high on news publishers' agendas.

Top 10 Companies - News Providers & Publishers
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)

Top 10 Companies – News Providers & Publishers
Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

Scientific, Technical & Medical Information

  • The STM segment is continuing to perform as investors hope. Growth is hardly spectacular, but it does remain predictable, steady, and above overall industry growth, at 7.6 percent in 2006. Among the large players, size and diversity across segments provides real protection against the vagaries of the market.
  • Elsevier focused heavily in 2006 on its Scopus service, in some cases coming into more direct competition with Thomson's A&I activities than ever before (e.g., in providing author identification services). Elsevier's estimated 5 percent growth in 2006 comes from its strong subscription renewal rate and growing online sales.
  • Wolters Kluwer posted strong results, with STM growth of 25 percent. Sustaining this level of growth in 2007 may be challenging since reorganization is a priority.
  • Wiley's November acquisition of Blackwell will give it greater presence in Medicine, and potentially takes it to a size where in 2007 it will be able to employ economies of scale to accelerate its online participation.
  • Although it falls just below the Top 10, Informa continues to be a star player, more robust after its growth across all segments in 2006. Subscriptions and copy sales growth remain on par with the industry - doubly impressive, given the company's continued internal restructuring.

Top 10 Companies - Scientific, Technical & Medical Information
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)

Top 10 Companies – News Providers & Publishers
Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

Search, Aggregation & Syndication

  • Search, Aggregation & Syndication (SAS) is the fastest growing segment at 23.0 percent, with its Top 10 growing a sizzling 34.5 percent. Growth is driven by the ad money flowing into paid search from print, TV, and radio.
  • Together, the top five SAS market share leaders hold 66 percent of the SAS market and 93 percent of the Top 10. The Web search and portal companies - AOL, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft - dominate this segment while Google and Yahoo! have rewritten the playbook for both search and the overall information industry. At the same time, Factiva and LexisNexis are finding their niche. These "traditional" aggregators have focused on high-value-added workflow solutions and reinforcing their long-standing positions in the enterprise market.
  • Paid search that fuels SAS growth is feeling a tremor. The most linked-to ranking methods are being challenged, and click fraud is rattling the pay-per-click foundation. Google, Yahoo!, and MSN (GYM) ultimately will have to realize that advertisers are customers whose demands for pay-for-performance and for visibility into whether their dollars are buying legitimate clicks must be attended to.

Top 10 Companies - Search, Aggregation & Syndication
Preliminary Est. Worldwide Revenues ($M)

Top 10 Companies – Search, Aggregation & Syndication
Source: Outsell's Publishers & Information Providers Database
© 2007 Outsell, Inc. Reproduction strictly prohibited.

 

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