Currency effects, which impacted heavily in the first six months of the year, accounted for a sales reduction of 0.9%.

However its CEO Matthias Hartmann (pictured) claimed that the company’s transformation process was showing signs of success with margins up 0.3 percentage points, compared with the previous year, to 12.3%.

Hartmann said: “Our consistent transformation is taking hold and the trend in the margin reflects that we are well underway. We are building on our global portfolio, which we are making increasingly scalable, our optimised structure and our future-oriented business model.”

As part of the transformation, GfK has been focused on building income and margin in the Consumer Experiences sector as well as growing the Consumer Choices sector.

The Consumer Choices sector saw sales increase 2.7% before currency effects and acquisitions. The company said that with scheduled write-downs, the set-up of new panels, technological platform development and the start-up of new business, the margin decreased to 22.2% compared with 23.8% the previous year.

In Brazil and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, panels were set up for the media research contracts and the company said it expected these activities to contribute to growth in the Consumer Choices sector from the second half of the year.

In the Consumer Experiences sector, margins rose from 6.6% to 7.0% although sales decreased 6.2% to around €827m.

GfK’s full annual statement will be released on 13 March 2015.