Business Intelligence Market Led by SAP, IBM and Oracle

Vangie Beal

Updated · Jun 30, 2011

According to IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Business Intelligence Tools Tracker, the worldwide business intelligence (BI) market generated more than $4 billion in revenues in the second half of 2010. This marks the first time the market has surpassed the $4 billion mark in a semiannual period, the research firm said.

“2010 was a solid year for the BI tools market, and our models indicate that growth will continue throughout the five-year forecast period,” said Dan Vesset, IDC program vice president for Business Analytics. “Business analytics remains one of the top priorities for most organizations and BI tools are one of the key enabling technologies for more pervasive business analytics.”

Top business intelligence vendors

The top two business intelligence vendors for the full year were SAP (NYSE: SAP) and IBM (NYSE: IBM), each capturing more than $1 billion in software revenue during 2010.

SAP enjoyed strong growth in a number of large country markets, including Australia, Canada, and Russia. IBM’s performance was bolstered by strong results in Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

The top 10 vendors accounted for 72 percent of the overall market in 2010, with four vendors — MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), Panorama Software and QlikTech (NASDAQ: QLIK) — growing faster than the overall market.

Analytics, query and reporting markets also up

For the full year 2010, the business intelligence tools market grew 12.7 percent, adding $893 million in global revenues over 2009.

The End-User Query, Reporting, and Analysis functional market also enjoyed a stronger growth rate for the year, up 13.7 percent over 2009. In comparison, the Advanced Analytics functional market grew 8.6 percent in 2010, with three large country markets — Australia, Brazil, and India — up more than 30 percent.

To continue growing in the BI tools market, vendors need to align their technology packaging and pricing with the growing preference among end-users for departmental and incremental projects and subscription pricing, IDC said. Although the latter still represents only a small portion of the BI tools market, SaaS and cloud BI offerings are growing three times faster than the rest of the market.

IDC expects six large country markets — Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Korea and Russia — to achieve double-digit growth rates in 2011.

A total of 58 vendors were included in the 2H10 market results, said IDC.

Vangie Beal
Vangie Beal

Vangie is a freelance technology writer who covers Internet technologies, online business, and other topics for over 15 years. SEO Content Writer with high-quality organic search results. Professional freelance technology writer with over 15 years experience. - Understands the technology trends in SMB and Enterprise markets. - Proficient in email marketing and social media campaigns. - Trusted and respected voice in small business marketing via e-commerce. - Knowledgeable in how to incorporate sales initiatives and assets into articles or Web content. Experienced social media marketer. Specialties: SEO. Electronic commerce, small businesses, Internet. Computers, servers, networking. Computer science. Terms, terminology. Social media, email marketing. Mobile apps. Operating systems. Software and hardware. Interviews, tips, advice, guides and feature articles. Marketing, slideshows, how-to guides. Search engine tools.

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