SAS high on success

Not quite sure if SAS is punch drunk or slap happy, but the fact is that they’ve now got two new official kudos to claim.

SAS representatives today announced that, “in a double-punch,” the firm has been recognized by IT market research and advisory firm IDC as the largest predictive analytics vendor in the worldwide market for CRM analytic applications and the leading CRM analytic applications vendor in Western Europe.

The statistics are borne out in the report “Worldwide CRM Analytic Applications 2005 Vendor Shares: Consolidation Continues in an Expanding Market.” The IDC study provides the market sizing and vendor shares for the worldwide customer relationship applications analytics software market in 2005. Market trends are provided, along with future market outlook and guidance to CRM analytic application software vendors.

In the report, IDC calculates that CRM analytic applications revenue grew 11.3 percent in 2005 to US $1.14 billion, while SAS revenue grew by 22 percent. “SAS remained the largest predictive analytics vendor in the CRM market as well as the number two vendor in the overall analytic applications market,” states the report.

IDC’s second SAS-friendly report, “Western European CRM Analytic Applications, 2005 Vendor Shares,” is a study examining the Western European CRM analytic applications market with the aim of providing “input to the strategic and tactical planning process of vendors competing in the CRM markets as either software or service providers” and gives detailed historical Western European vendor revenues and market shares from 2003 to 2005.

SAS took the top position in the CRM analytic applications market in Western Europe in the report, with a revenue growth rate of 22.5 percent. SAS revenues were posted at €59.5 million (approximately US $74.48 million), representing a market share of 21.4 percent. The report shows SAS leading vendors in Benelux, France, Germany, Italy, and the Nordic region. IDC praised SAS by saying the firm “has true optimization technology” with “strength in both the analysis and operational sides of CRM.”

Founded in 1976, SAS provides customer intelligence solutions that span campaign management, cross-sell/up-sell, customer retention, customer segmentation, email marketing, interaction management, campaign optimization, marketing performance management and web analytics. SAS provides industry-specific solutions for the retail, financial, insurance, life sciences, healthcare, manufacturing, CCE, telecommunications and government sectors. Some 40,000 sites today employ SAS software and services.