According to International Data Corporation (IDC (News - Alert)), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications market will grow at 7.6 percent year over year to reach approximately $18 billion in revenues in 2011.
In 2010, CRM applications market grew at the rate of 6.2 percent year over year to touch $16.5 billion, according to IDC Worldwide Semiannual Customer Relationship Management Applications Tracker.
“Despite its relative market maturity, CRM applications represent a vibrant market opportunity,” said Mary Wardley, program vice president, CRM Applications, IDC, in a statement. “As a segment, CRM applications continue to evolve.”
“With technology enhancements such as social networking and socialytics, today's CRM applications are helping organizations deliver the next level in intimacy and insight,” Wardley added. “In an interconnected world of global commerce the customer experience and relationship will be the key differentiator.”
IDC expects customer service and marketing applications markets to grow at 8.2 percent and 8.8 percent respectively. Sales applications market is forecast to grow 8.6 percent year over year in 2011. Contact center market, which experienced a modest decline in 2010, will rebound to 5.4 percent year-over-year growth in 2011, IDC said in its report.
Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, and Russia are expected to drive strong growth in the marketing applications market. These same countries, with the exception of Brazil, are forecast to experience even stronger growth in the Sales applications market.
Within the customer service market, three of the top 5 large countries (UK, Germany and France) are forecast to grow at an 8.2 percent annual rate in 2011, IDC said.
Of the top CRM vendors, Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce.com were the only vendors to amass more than $1 billion in CRM software revenue worldwide in 2010. Oracle was ranked No.1 with 11.8 percent global market share in 2010. Salesforce.com (News - Alert) led in overall year over year growth (27.4 percent) among the top 3.
While Oracle gained mostly from North America and Japan regions, Salesforce.com gained from Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) and Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMA) regions.
CRM applications market remains fragmented despite the existence of four functional markets, IDC said. Many vendors are vying to gain share. Outside the top 3 vendors, a total of 19 vendors achieved more than $100 million in CRM software revenue during 2010, representing more than 35 percent of total market share.
Earlier a January 2010 Gartner (News - Alert) report had said despite economic pressures, CRM adoption throughout Europe will stay flat or grow slightly about 0.7 percent.
Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Juliana Kenny