[June 14, 2012]

The Fight for CRM Applications Market Leadership Gets Tighter, According to IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) today released the latest results from its Worldwide Semiannual CRM Applications Tracker. The Tracker monitors more than 190 CRM vendors (global and local) across a total of 49 countries globally. Information provided include biannual market size, vendor share, and forecast data for the four functional markets - marketing automation, sales automation, customer service, and contact center - that comprise the CRM applications market.

The second half of 2011 experienced slightly slower revenue growth than the first half. Despite this slowing, the overall CRM applications market still managed to achieve a year-over-year growth rate of 11.2% for the full year. Of the 4 functional markets, marketing automation, sales automation, and customer service experienced double-digit growth in 2011, as expected. Contact center applications, on the other hand, grew at a single-digit rate losing almost 1.4% of market share. Although the contact center market is forecast to maintain a positive growth rate over the 2012-2016 forecast period, the trend of losing market share is also forecast to continue, with contact center applications expected to lose an additional 3.4% through 2016.

From a geographic perspective, the Americas and Japan performed better in the second half of the year than the rest of the regions. Meanwhile, the emerging regions (CEMA, Latin America and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)) gained 0.7% of market share compared to 2010. The latter trend is likely to continue in the upcoming years driven by countries such as Russia, India, China and most of Latin America and the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

"The CRM applications market is poised on the threshold of a transformation with legacy installations being transformed into socially-aware applications environments. Early movement has been observed for the last several years. An influx of new social vendors and acquisitions of social CRM application providers by established vendors augmenting their offerings for rapid market entry is invigorating the market. The activity is expected to continue through 2012 and is bringing net-new revenue to the space." said Mary Wardley, program vice president, CRM Applications.

The competitive scenario for the worldwide CRM applications market is becoming decidedly more interesting. The top the vendors are closer than ever with just one percentage point or less separating the leaders. One area of differentiation among the leaders is the geographic basis upon which their global market shares are built. While Oracle (News - Alert) holds the lead in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), Salesforce.com is very strong in North America and Japan. And SAP is the established leader in EMEA and Latin America.

The top 10 vendors made up 49% of the CRM applications market in 2011, gaining 0.8% compared to 2010. IBM (News - Alert) broke into the top 10 list for the first time in 2011 with double-digit year-over-year growth. Other top-growing vendors among the top 10 were SAP, Salesforce.com, and NICE Systems. SAS (News - Alert), Adobe, Microsoft, Nuance Communications Inc., RightNow Technologies Inc., Interactive Intelligence Inc, and LivePerson were all among the top 25 CRM Applications vendors.

A graphic illustrating the relative market shares of the top 5 CRM applications vendors for 2011 is available at IDC (News - Alert).com. The chart is intended for public use in online news articles and social media. Instructions on how to embed this graphic can be found by viewing this press release on IDC.com.

IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Customer Relationship Management Applications Tracker provides total market size and vendor share for the contact center, customer service, marketing, and sales segments of the global CRM software market. Measurement for this tracker is total software revenue, which includes license plus maintenance plus SaaS (News - Alert) and other subscription revenue. The Tracker covers up to 49 nations in total. Annual five-year market forecasts for this Tracker are updated semiannually and include five-year annual market projections. Forecasts are available at worldwide, regional, and country levels.

For more information about IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Software Trackers, please contact Kathy Nagamine at 650-350-6423 or knagamine@idc.com.

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. For more than 48 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

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