• by Wayne Friedman , October 21, 2015

Nielsen’s Buy business segment -- which offers packaged-goods manufacturers and retailers retail performance measurement. -- grew 4.1% to $816 million. Nielsen’s Watch segment -- which offers media measurement for media and advertising clients -- was up 6.1% to $715 million.

Todd Juenger, senior media analyst at Bernstein Research, says these results were mostly expected, noting that the improvement came from higher audio business revenues -- up 11% -- as well as a closing of some legacy Watch products.

Also contributing to the uptick was the acquisition of eXelate -- a company that provides data and technology for the buying and selling of advertising across programmatic platforms.

Total quarterly revenues were $1.53 billion -- down 2.6% due to the impact of foreign exchange, but up 5% on a constant currency basis compared to the third quarter of 2014. Net income for the third quarter increased 54.3% to $142 million.

Nielsen’s Buy segment grew from its developed markets, which rose 3.1%. While emerging markets were up 6.3%, this was down from its more rapid 9.3% growth and higher gains in previous periods.

Midday trading of Nielsen stock was down 4% to $46.60.