AP content management market to reach US$281M

Growing awareness of compliance and risk management, coupled with increasing outsourcing activities, will fuel growth in the Asia-Pacific content management software market, according to IDC.

The research house this week released a new study predicting that the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, will see its content management software market grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.2 percent, to hit US$281 million by 2011. This market was valued at US$145 million last year.

Across the region, in 2006, North Asia led the market in terms of revenue at 44.8 percent, followed by Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) at 32 percent, Asean at 13.4 percent, and South Asia at 9.8 percent, according to the IDC study.

"The growing awareness on compliance and risk management continues to be the key growth drivers of the Asia-Pacific content management software market in 2006", said Prianka Srinivasan, market analyst for software research, IDC Asia-Pacific.

"As outsourcing activities increase, more organizations will pay even more attention to the protection of intellectual property rights and the management of digital rights," Prianka added. "These emerging factors are expected to influence market growth over the next few years."

Australia and South Korea are anticipated to continue to dominate the region's content management software market during the forecast period. India and China are also projected to register strong growth, as companies in these two populous nations recognize the "need to be information-compliant in order to globalize effectively", IDC said.

By 2011, while North Asia and ANZ will continue to dominate the market, their share of the revenue will decrease slightly to 41.2 percent and 13.8 percent, respectively. Asean and South Asia are projected to grow their market share to 13.8 percent and 13.2 percent, respectively.

IDC also noted that market positions among the top vendors shifted due to several large-scale acquisitions in 2006. EMC, IBM and Interwoven were the top three vendors, accounting for approximately 40 percent of the total market revenue in 2006.

Prianka said: "While vendors continue to emphasize their strong product offerings, IDC believes these vendors will also need a strong partner ecosystem and aggressive marketing activities to expand their presence in the Asia-Pacific content management market."

Also "critical" to the vendors is the management and distribution of multilingual content in the culturally-diverse region, IDC said, noting that software makers can address this by either offering translation--or globalization--features, or by acquiring vendors that specialize in such functionalities.