Nielsen Holdings plc NLSN

Nielsen Holdings plc, incorporated on February 4, 2015, is a performance management company. The Company provides to clients an understanding of what consumers watch and what they buy and how those choices intersect. The Company's segments include what consumers buy (Buy), consisting principally of market research information and analytical services, and what consumers watch and listen to (Watch), consisting principally of television, radio, online and mobile audience and advertising measurement services and corresponding analytics.

The Buy segment provides measurement services, which include its core tracking and scan data (primarily transactional measurement data and consumer behavior information), and analytical services to businesses in the consumer packaged goods industry. Its services also enable its clients to manage their brands, uncover new sources of demand, launch and grow new products, analyze their sales, manage their marketing mix and establish consumer relationships. Its data is used by its clients to measure their market share, tracking billions of sales transactions per month in retail outlets around the world. Within its Buy segment, the Company has geographic groups, such as developed and emerging markets. Its developed markets primarily include the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and South Korea. Its emerging markets include Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, India and Southeast Asia.

The Company provides retail measurement services. Its purchasing data provides market share, competitive sales volumes and insights into such activities as distribution, pricing, merchandising and promotion. It conducts consumer panels around the world that help its clients understand consumer purchasing dynamics at the household level. As of December 31, 2016, the Company's consumer panels collected data from over 250,000 household panelists across 25 countries that use in-home scanners to record purchases from each shopping trip. The Company provides a selection of consumer intelligence and analytical services that help clients make business decisions throughout their product development and marketing cycles. The Company draws actionable insights from its retail and consumer panel measurement data sets, online behavioral information, as well as a range of other data sets.

The Watch segment provides viewership and listening data and analytics primarily to the media and advertising industries across the television, radio, print, online and mobile viewing and listening platforms. Its Watch data is used by its media clients to understand their audiences, establish the value of their advertising inventory and maximize the value of their content, and by its advertising clients to plan and optimize their spending. The Company offers various services, which include television audience measurement, audio audience measurement, digital audience measurement, mobile measurement and total audience measurement.

The Company also provides services, including their lifestyles, shopping patterns, and use of media in local markets and across the United States. It also markets its quantitative and qualitative audience and consumer information to customers outside of its traditional base, including newspapers; advertising agencies; the advertising sales organizations of local cable television companies; national cable and broadcast television networks; out-of-home media sales organizations; sports teams and leagues, marketers and advertisers. Its qualitative media insights applications include marketing, cross-platform, prospecting, planning/buying, sales, news, promotions, programming and editorial. Its qualitative information provides advertiser insights into the areas of promotions, marketing, brand management, multiculturalism, product development, shopper insights and sponsorship.

As of December 31, 2016, the Company provided approximately two principal television ratings services in the United States: measurement of national television audiences and measurement of local television audiences in 210 designated local television markets. The Company uses various methods to collect the data from households, including electronic meters, which provide minute-by-minute viewing information for next day consumption by its clients, and written diaries. As of December 31, 2016, the Company measured television viewing in 31 countries outside the United States, including Australia, Indonesia, Italy and South Korea.

The Company provides independent measurement and consumer research primarily servicing radio, advertisers and advertising agencies in the audio industry. It provides syndicated radio ratings services in local markets in the United States to radio broadcasters, advertising agencies and advertisers. The Company provides digital media and market research, audience analytics and social media measurement. The Company employs a range of measurement offerings to provide digital publishers, Internet and media companies, marketers and retailers with metrics to understand the behavior of online audiences. Through a combination of panel and census data collection methods, the Company measures and studies Internet surfing, online buying and video viewing (including television content) of digital audiences.

The Company provides independent measurement and consumer research for telecommunication and media companies in the mobile telecommunications industry. As of December 31, 2016, the Company offered mobile measurement and analytic services in 29 countries around of the world. The Company connects all of its video measurement capabilities together in a solution covering clients' total audience for content and campaigns across all consumer access points.

The Company provides a range of solutions to advertisers, whether they are consumer packaged goods manufacturers, retailers, media companies or other verticals, such as automotive, telecommunication or financial services, to validate and optimize their advertising spend. The Company offers services specific to television, digital and social marketing to determine resonance or impact of specific campaigns, by measuring objectives, such as breakthrough, brand recall, purchase intent and effect on product and brand loyalty.

The Company competes with Information Resources, Inc., GfK, Ipsos, Kantar, comScore, TiVo, Oracle, Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics and Triton.