Market research agency Nielsen is to continue with its stand of not providing services to financial analysts.
It was a year ago that Nielsen had suspended services to the analyst community following an uproar by companies over inaccurate reporting of market share data.
The plan was to resume services in a year's time. That has clearly not happened.
Nielsen declined to comment on the issue.
FMCG companies make the bulk of Nielsen's subscribers. While not all brokerages are subscribers to Nielsen's data, the few who are influential. These include Morgan Stanley, DSP Merrill Lynch, Nomura, Kotak Securities and ICICI Securities.
These brokerage firms chose not to comment on the issue. But persons in the know say with no data, most of these firms have had to depend on companies' versions of market shares for a year now. This will continue.
"By no means can we independently verify the data we get from the companies," said an analyst from one of the brokerages.
Companies, in turn, say the move to suspend providing market share data was important given the process of overhaul at Nielsen.
"Analysts benchmark companies based on the data they get from Nielsen. If the data are not positive, the report is unlikely to be positive. This obviously impacts the company under review because people base their judgment on what they read," said an executive with an FMCG company.
Analysts say it is this fear that has led to the present outcome. "I don't see why else data should not be shared,"
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said another analyst.