Worldwide CRM Applications Market Forecast to Reach $18.2 Billion in 2011, Up 11% from 2010, According to IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) released its latest results from the Worldwide Semiannual Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Applications Tracker.

The Tracker monitors nearly 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, Sales, Customer Service, and Contact Center – that comprise the CRM applications market.

"The global CRM applications market recorded a very strong performance in the first half of this year, with revenues totaling $9.2 billion," said Wilvin Chee, associate vice president, Worldwide Software Trackers.

"The semiannual year-on-year growth of 13.3% was a third stronger than what it was a year ago."
Out of the four functional markets, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service are each expected to achieve double-digit growth in 2011.

While the Contact Center functional is not forecast to follow suit, it nevertheless should recover very strongly from a prior year decline of 3.6%. In terms of geography, Americas and Europe will be registering at least double the growth of 2010.

"The CRM applications market experiences growth in an organic relationship with broader market conditions and organizational performance. Movements such as social and mobile are bringing consumer-like experience requirements to all aspects of end customer engagement with the companies with whom they conduct business," said Mary Wardley, program vice president, CRM Applications.

"As a result, we will see requirements for a modernization of customer-facing processes, which will precipitate increased investment in supporting systems such as CRM applications."

A total of 18 vendors (two more than during the first half of 2010) achieved revenues of more than $100 million revenue during the first half of 2011 (1H11). Combined, these vendors captured a total market share of 63% with the remainder shared among 170 vendors and others.

The two new vendors that surpassed the $100 million revenue mark in 1H11 were Nuance Communications and Reynolds & Reynolds.

Oracle remained the number 1 CRM vendor worldwide, growing above the market average and the only vendor that earned double-digit market share (13.2%) during the first half of 2011.

Salesforce.com continued to impress with the best year-over-year growth (22.6%) among the top 10 vendors during the same period and moving into the number 2 position worldwide for the first time since IDC started tracking the market semiannually in 2008. Within the top 10, SAP and NICE Systems were the other vendors that had stronger than overall market growth.

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