Reuters’ annual revenue run rate for reference data feeds is approaching $100 million. The figure represents a quadrupling of $25 million annualized sales rate of a couple of years ago.
While Reuters doesn’t officially break out figures for its reference feed business – instead including the data within its enterprise information segment, which also includes its much larger real-time data feeds business – CEO Tom Glocer told analysts at this month’s first-quarter earnings call that reference data feeds were now a key area of market share growth.
“We are getting close to the $100 million milestone of contracted revenue,” he said, “which is not bad for what was less than a $25 million business a few years ago.” Glocer also cited Reuters’ new Datascope Tick History historical pricing offering as a major contributor to revenue during the first quarter.
Meanwhile, rival Interactive Data Corp. reported that its FT Interactive Data subsidiary, home to the company’s main offerings in the reference data space, saw first-quarter revenue rise 4.4% to $89.8 million, with growth of 6.5% excluding foreign exchange effects. The figure indicates an annual run rate of almost $400 million.
North American revenues were up 6.5% in the first quarter, while European and Asia/Pacific sales slipped 2.2% and 2.7%, respectively. Net of currency effects, Europe was up 5.5% and Asia/Pacific up 1.2%.
