"Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, the market for supply chain applications showed itself to be pretty resilient in 2011 with most SCM providers continuing to expand their footprints," said Chad Eschinger, research vice president at Gartner. "North America and Western Europe continued to be the prime consumers of SCM software in terms of dollars spent, with nearly 79 percent of market revenue. However, European growth slowed in 2011 while Asia/Pacific continued to experience robust growth that significantly outpaced the market average."

SAP continued to lead the SCM software market, accounting for 19.9 percent of the worldwide market. Oracle was the No. 2 vendor with 16.9-percent market share. Ariba experienced the strongest growth among the top five vendors with SCM software revenue increasing 46.5 percent in 2011.

"The SCM software market is fragmented, with a plethora of small and mid-sized vendors (with revenue of less than $50m) across regions and its four primary market segments," said Eschinger. "Nevertheless, the top five vendors - SAP, Oracle, JDA Software, Ariba and Manhattan Associates - collectively held 48.3 percent of the worldwide SCM software market based on 2011 total software revenue."

Eschinger said that SCM offerings delivered as software as a service subscriptions continued to bolster above-market growth in 2011 at 21 percent for both long-standing incumbents and many best-of-breed point product vendors, with focused capabilities for specific niche markets, while perpetual licenses also grew significantly at 15 percent.

Additional information is available in the Gartner report "Market Share Analysis: Supply Chain Management Software, Worldwide, 2011." The report is available on Gartner's website.

Source: Gartner Inc.