CRM vendors battle for market share

Information Week reports.

CRM software (and related services) revenue increased 11.2% year-over-year to $19.1 billion in 2011. CRM growth was driven by strong demand for marketing automation, sales automation and customer-service technologies.

The one CRM category that did not keep pace was contact centre software, which grew at a meagre single-digit rate of just 1.4%, as companies pushed self-service-oriented knowledge base and collaborative alternatives to customer support.

The top CRM spot, according to IDC, belongs to Oracle, which captured 11% of the market, Enterprise Apps Today writes.

SAP and Salesforce.com follow in a tight battle for second place, with 9.9% and 9.5% market shares, respectively. Rounding out the top five are Avaya, with 3.6% of the market, and SEC with 3.3%.

IDC forecasts that while growth in contact centre applications will continue, it will be at a slower, single-digit pace and result in a 3.4% drop of market share through 2016.

Geographically, Oracle holds the lead in the Asia-Pacific region outside of Japan, while SAP has established itself as the leader in EMEA, as well as the Latin American markets, eWeek reveals.

Salesforce.com is currently doing well in the North American and Japanese markets. “The competitive scenario for the worldwide CRM applications market is becoming decidedly more interesting,” the report notes.

The Americas and Japan outperformed other geographic areas in the second half of the year, according to IDC, while emerging markets like Latin America and the Asia-Pacific markets gained 0.7% of market share, compared to 2010.