The global enterprise software market expanded by 5.5 percent year over year during the first half of 2013 to US$179 billion, a result that suggests a tentative rebound from economic turmoil in Europe, according to analyst firm IDC.
Global software revenue ticked up 5.1 percent during the same period in 2012, IDC said Wednesday. For the full year 2013, IDC expects a 5.7 percent growth rate.
"Enterprises are seeing new opportunities to drive new and improved products and services by leveraging information," IDC senior vice president Henry Morris said in a statement. "Therefore, it stands to reason that software to manage, access, and share information (structured and unstructured) continues to be a priority for competing in today's economy."
The analyst firm breaks the software market into three main segments: applications; application development and deployment; and systems infrastructure.
Applications experienced a 5.8 percent sales increase in the first half of this year, driven by 28.3 percent growth in enterprise social networking product sales.
Application development and deployment product revenue lagged those results slightly, with a 5.1 percent first-half growth rate. Systems infrastructure software sales also increased 5.1 percent overall, but the system software subcategory jumped more than 8 percent due to factors such as the Windows 8 launch, according to IDC.
By region, Latin America was the fastest-growing area with an 8.6 percent uptick, followed by the U.S. with 7.9 percent. Growth was 5.1 percent in Western Europe.
Asia-Pacific saw a 6.6 percent rise in software revenue but only when Japan is excluded. A devalued yen resulted in a 9.2 percent drop in software revenue there when calculated in U.S. dollars, IDC said.
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.