RNS remains clear market leader in battle over company announcements, finds latest quarterly survey

22/11/2002

A survey by data technology company Knowledge Technology Solutions has found that the City is overwhelmingly still using the London Stock Exchange’s Regulatory News Service (RNS) for its company announcements, though RNS is losing market share week by week.

The London Stock Exchange’s Regulatory News Service (RNS) is maintaining its iron grip on the market for company regulatory announcements, finds the latest quarterly survey of this market by real-time data technology company Knowledge Technology Solutions PLC. Despite six other companies entering the newly liberalised market in April, RNS remains overwhelmingly the most popular primary information provider (PIP), handling a commanding 83% of the 43,512 company regulatory announcements issued between 20th August and 20th November 2002. The survey also found that none of the PIPs have yet resorted to cutting prices to increase market share.

According to the latest KTS survey, PR Newswire stays firmly in second place with 10.9% of market share. Waymaker, which started its services two weeks later with Hugin, has risen to third place with 2.5%. Hugin and Newslink have made least inroads into the market, with just 0.4% of share each.

KTS monitored regulatory announcements on its live financial information product QuoteTerminal to identify how many were made using each of the PIPs.

Dr Marc Pinter-Krainer, the chief executive of KTS, said:

Ã’Clearly the well-known name and trusted brand of RNS means the other PIPs will need to work extremely hard to improve their positions. It’s one thing to end a monopoly, but another to get customers to try alternative suppliers to such an established market leader.

On 15 April 2002, RNS ceased to be the only outlet for company regulatory announcements. PR Newswire, BusinessWire, PIMS, and Newslink introduced their competing services on 15th April. Hugin and Waymaker started their services on 29th April. The PIPs charge either per announcement made with an upper limit to the annual price charged, or they have an annual fee (please refer to Table 2 on the following page).