Bloomberg market share edges ahead of Thomson Reuters - US report

Bloomberg had a market share of 30.44 per cent last year compared with Thomson Reuters’ 30.05 per cent, the report by Burton-Taylor International Consulting said.

Crains New York Business said Bloomberg’s move into first place “has coincided with troubles at Thomson Reuters, which replaced its CEO at the end of last year following disappointing results for the Eikon market-data desktop product that the company launched in 2010”.

Overall spending on market data and analysis reached a new high in 2011, growing 6.1 per cent over the prior year to $24.94 billion, according to Burton-Taylor. Even so, the year ended on a down note amid “uncertainty in the Western European economies and late-year contraction by market data users,” Douglas Taylor, managing partner of Burton-Taylor, said in a statement.

“Much of the revenue growth was the result of price increases, currency conversions, and non-data related turnover such as transaction fees,” he said.

Bloomberg has been gaining on its rival for years, Crains said. In 2007, the year Thomson and Reuters agreed to merge, Bloomberg had 26 per cent of the market, against Thomson Reuters’ 36 per cent.

“Completed in 2008, the merger made the global giant less competitive for a while, as management focused on integrating two companies in what would soon become a tough economic climate. And by the time Eikon was launched, its customer base was still recovering from a devastating recession.

“‘They were trying to rebuild a new company and build a new product at the same time,’ Mr. Taylor said in an interview. ‘Bloomberg, even in difficult economic times, sticks to its knitting’.”

A spokesman for Thomson Reuters declined to comment, Crains said. ■