Oracle overtakes IBM to become No 2 in India

Records highest growth among software vendors in India in 2013

Riding high on the demand for database management systems, enterprise software maker Oracle has overtaken IBM to become the second-largest software vendor in India, after Microsoft, according to a report by research firm Gartner.

In 2013, the US-headquartered company reported 21.5 per cent year-on-year growth in software revenues in India, the highest among all major information technology (IT) vendors in the country, including Microsoft, IBM, SAP, VMware and CA Technologies.

“This is the first time in Gartner’s India software market share research that Oracle has been ranked second in terms of total software revenue, with approximately $505 million in 2013, capturing 7.3 per cent of the market,” Gartner said in a statement.

“Trends around business intelligence and analytics, with increasing customer investments in database management systems, helped drive Oracle’s revenue growth,” said Bhavish Sood, Gartner’s research director.

Microsoft continued to lead the Indian software market, with revenue of $957.3 million in 2013, 10.6 per cent more than in 2012. At $446.6 million, IBM recorded an increase of 6.8 per cent in its software revenue from India.

On a year-on-year basis, SAP, CA Technologies and Adobe saw declines in their software revenues from India.

Overall, India software revenues stood at $4.765 billion in 2013, growth of 10 per cent compared to the previous year, according to the report. Among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, India’s software market saw the highest growth, owing to an increase in consumption by small and mid-sized businesses.

“India is growing faster than other emerging countries, which can be attributed to an export-oriented focus over the last decade. However, recent advances in IT communications infrastructure in the country have opened new avenues for local consumption of IT software and associated services,” said Sood.