Is IMS / IHS Research Reliable?

Well, what IMS is attempting to do is nearly impossible to do accurately, though certainly made worse that they typically hire people out of school with no industry experience nor contacts.

I have seen some of their numbers and talked to manufacturers, and we have wondered the same things - where did they get these numbers from? How could these numbers be correct given they obviously contradict X, Y and Z known through public filings, etc.

My understanding is that the bulk of the numbers are ascertained by contacting manufacturers and asking them how much is their revenue or how much is their revenue in encoders, DVRs, 5MP cameras, etc. Alternatively, they might say "We think you did X. How much do you think you did?" This is corroborated by quite a number of manufacturer's explanations to me.

Indeed, this makes sense. How can you possible know how many encoders (or SD cameras) ACTi or Axis or Vivotek or Verint sold last year without getting the numbers from them? Of course, then you face 2 risks: (1) the manufacturer overstates or (2) the manufacturer refuses and the firm is left to make up a number or leave them out.

The net/net is to take those numbers with a lot of skepticism.

In their defense, the other people that sort of try to do detailed market sizing in surveillance are far worse :)

I don't extravagant hope the data is acurate, but the maket trends should be correct at all catalogue level.

Btw, I am curious. Who's buying IMS reports? Are there any integrators buying them?

Here in brazil many companies bought it and the main association actually issue statements based on it... Even TV programs do their news reports based on what this association says. Its really getting out of hands lol!

Whenever possible I like to distill the market analysis, and trend projections, by triangulating across several "secondary research" market sources ( e.g., syndicated reports). This theoretically mitigates errors in any one, but of course it doesn't protect against them all being off. Then I temper the resulting analysis with primary research "proof points" which with any luck superimpose on the secondary research in a validating manner. It's usually difficult to look very far ahead or very far across products without applying some judgement and interpretation. There is art required with the science underscoring the importance of industry experience and insights.

We got involved in an IMS Report Study about a year and a half ago. The research they did and the questions they asked us were OK, but their vision and understanding of the market was, to be charitable, very limited. I completely agree with Skip's comments - the resulting report had to be analysed in the light of a lot of our own market intelligence and industry knowledge.

Our conclusions were that we didn't really gain much benefit from particpating, nor from the information contained in the resulting report, and that we can get almost as much information (if not more) from public sources, credit-rating agencies, financial reports and even, dare I say it . . . . IPVM.

The Frost & Sullivan Reports have long since become worthless, and their Innovation and Technology Awards are an industry joke. Without applying, we were informed that we had won an F&S Innovation award for one of our products (OK, it was a great product!). But the small print said that we weren't allowed to tell anyone nor use the F&S award logo unless we paid the $30k "Marketing Package" fee, which included all sorts of useless stuff, like being invited to a dinner to meet some boss of an F&S department. Laughable.

Apologies for posting this as "undisclosed", but the reasons are obvious.