Merger upon merger
One of the UK’s leading technology hardware market researchers has acquired a majority shareholding in its main software and games market researcher to create a new joint company, unsurprisingly named GfK Chart-Track, which will potentially offer information on the full spectrum of consumer technology products.
The MD of the new company is John Pinder, who was formerly MD of Chart-Track, and he spoke to HEXUS.channel to explain the thinking behind the move. “We have been working together since the late 90s and lot of our clients are looking for international data so we think there are good product, geographic and culture fits,” he said.
Both companies offer chart data based of the sales of products from retail/etail. GfK tends to focus on hardware like PCs, components and peripherals, while Chart-Track is the UK authority on games and software sales. GfK also produces analyses of its data.
There is clearly the potential here for GfK Chart-Track to provide a comprehensive market information service for the channel, but it looks like we’ll have to wait to find out precisely what form that will take. “We haven’t worked out exactly how we will integrate the operations yet, so for the time being it will be business as usual,” said Pinder. “However, we will be announcing the products of our joint venture in the near future.”
This isn't the only merger GfK is involved with right now. Last week the GfK board approved a merger with UK market research giant Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS). This will go to a vote at an EGM on 21st July, but this looks like a bit of a formality.
However, this could all be scuppered by the world's second largest advertising company - WPP - which has been trying to buy TNS for a while and made a hostile £1.08 billion bid for it today.
Press release: GfK acquires majority shares in Chart-Track UK
Further reading: Global consumer tech industry to grow by nearly 10% this year
