According to Gartner, global customer relationship management (CRM) software revenues totalled $18 billion in 2012, a 12.5 per cent increase from $16 billion in 2011.
As per the firm, competition among major CRM software vendors intensified in the last year, as these companies continued to compete for broader market penetration internationally and more widespread adoption within mid-size to large enterprises.
Consequently, in 2012, the market grew three times the average of all enterprise software.
Moreover, vendors benefited from increasing demand for software as a service (SaaS), which represented nearly 40 per cent of total CRM software revenue. This, as per Gartner, was because organisations of all sizes sought easier-to-deploy alternatives to replace legacy systems, as net-new applications or to provide alternative complementary functionality.
The top five CRM vendors accounted for nearly 50 per cent of CRM software revenue in 2012.
As per the firm, Salesforce.com replaced SAP as the largest vendor in the CRM market.
