Symphony sets profit goal as it pushes its communication tool as alternative to Bloomberg

Symphony Communications Services, a provider of secure communication technology seeking to break the dominance of Bloomberg’s communication platform used by investment executives, has set a goal to turn a profit within 18 months.

The Silicon Valley, California-based company has also set a target to more than double its user base to 500,000 by the end of next year and redouble it to one million a year after that, according to its founder and chief executive David Gurle.

“What the market wants is a utility to which they can transform the way they can conduct their business,” he said on the sidelines of the Forbes Global CEO conference on Wednesday.

Symphony has 230,000 users and 200 corporate clients, up from 220,000 users and 190 firms last month.

Unlike Bloomberg, which sells financial market data, news and a communications tool to financial sector executives as a bundled offer through its terminals, Symphony focuses on providing a platform for them to communicate and share content.

To better compete with Bloomberg, Gurle said Symphony has joined with its rival Thomson Reuters which provides news and data, as well as data and analytics provider FactSet, to combine their offerings at a lower price than Bloomberg to meet the same customer needs.