Over $4bn in revenues were generated by the global business intelligence (BI) tools market in the second half of 2010 (2H10), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Business Intelligence Tools Tracker.

For the full year 2010, the BI tools market grew 12.7% year over year, adding $893m in global revenues over the previous year, the tracker said.

IDC program vice president of Business Analytics Dan Vesset said to continue growing in the BI tools market, vendors need to align their technology packaging and pricing with the growing preference among end-users for departmental and incremental projects and subscription pricing.

"Although the latter still represents only a small portion of the BI tools market, SaaS or cloud BI offerings are growing three times faster than the rest of the market," Vesset said.

The top 2 BI tools vendors for the full year were SAP and IBM, both accounting for more than $1bn each in software revenue during 2010.

SAP showed strong growth in a number of large country markets, including Australia, Canada, and Russia, while IBM enjoyed strong results in Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK.

The top 10 vendors accounted for 72% of the overall market in 2010, with four vendors – MicroStrategy, Oracle, Panorama Software, and QlikTech – outperforming the market in terms of year-over-year growth, the tracker said.

The end-user query, reporting, and analysis functional market enjoyed a stronger growth rate for the year, up 13.7% over 2009, with Russia delivering outstanding performance in this, achieving annual growth of more than 200%.

The countries that had growth more than global average were Australia, Canada, India, Korea, and PRC.

A growth of 8.6% year over year was seen in the advanced analytics functional market in 2010 with three large country markets – Australia, Brazil, and India – growing more than 30% year over year in 2010.

According to IDC, six large country markets – Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Korea, and Russia – are expected to achieve double-digit growth rates in 2011.