New York, NY, August 10, 2020 – Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) Global Connect today announced the enhancement of its Nielsen Total U.S. Pet Retail measurement, strengthening the industry’s most holistic view into the U.S. pet retail market. Already measuring more than $30 billion in annual sales of pet products, Nielsen will further enhance its coverage of the growing neighborhood pet channel and more frequently update its best-in-class retail universe.

Nielsen’s consistent growth in pet retail measurement reinforces stability and support for a rapidly evolving market, which is seeing an acceleration in pet ownership and 63% growth in e-commerce sales for traditional brick-and-mortar pet retailers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Having doubled its measured store count of the neighborhood pet channel since launching the Nielsen Total U.S. Pet Retail market read in September 2019, Nielsen will build on this growing measurement through additional cooperation from neighborhood pet retail clients. As a result, Nielsen Total U.S. Pet Retail all-commodity volume (ACV) coverage will be 80% census, an increase of 11 percentage points, thereby strengthening the precision of Nielsen’s measurement. Additionally, Nielsen will enhance the granularity and frequency of its coverage, shifting from annual to monthly updating of its pet retail universe—which is inclusive of both large chains and neighborhood retailers.

Combining pet specialty, e-commerce, and the extended All Outlets Combined (xAOC) measurement universe of grocery stores, drug stores, mass merchandisers, select dollar stores, select warehouse clubs, and military commissaries, Nielsen’s measurement of the pet landscape continues to reflect the most comprehensive view into pet product purchasing and shopper behavior across multiple channels.

“The pet retail channel has expanded its footprint and sales in recent years, a shift that has been further cemented during the pandemic,” said Raha Alavi, Senior Vice President of Retail Services at Nielsen. “We continually strive to reflect the power of this growing industry within our measurement. With this latest enhancement, we are demonstrating our commitment to providing the most holistic view into pet measurement and improving ongoing coverage, thereby empowering our retail clients to make data-driven decisions to grow their business.”

About Nielsen

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and buy. Nielsen’s Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services for all devices on which content — video, audio and text — is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry’s only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen also provides its clients with analytics that help improve performance.  Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population. For more information, visit nielseniq.com.

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