Worldwide software market grew 4.7% during the first half of 2012 to $167bn, compared to the same period last year, according to a new report by IDC.
According to a report, the market could see a conservative single digit growth from this year onward, slightly less than the growth experienced in 2010 and 2011.
Western Europe, which account for more than 27% of the entire market has experienced negative growth during the first half, impacting the growth of the market.
During second half US market grew 6.8% which represents more than 45% of the worldwide market.
Strong growth was experienced in Latin America and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) while countries like Colombia, Russia, Philippines, China, Peru, and New Zealand experienced highest growth.
Among the different segments of commercial software, Applications segment witnessed fastest growth of 5.1% in year-over-year basis, which account for about 49% of the overall market.
Growth in this segment was mainly driven by strong result in Collaborative Applications and CRM Applications markets.
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Most positive growth was witnessed in Virtualisation-related markets in the other two primary "commercial" software segments, Application Development and Deployment (AD&D) and System Infrastructure Software, the report revealed.
According to the report, strong growth is expected in Team Collaborative Applications and Enterprise Social Software over the next two years in the Collaborative Applications segment.
Enterprise Social Software has grown from 3% market share within the Collaborative Applications secondary market in 2008 to more than 11% in the first half of 2012, the report added.
The Team Collaborative Applications market on the other hand grew 15% during the period.
IDC Enterprise Social Networks and Collaborative Technologies research manager Vanessa Thompson said increasingly, companies are thinking of social solutions as decision support and ad hoc work facilitators and are looking for richer features that integrate data and content with people and systems.
"In the new collaborative enterprise, companies are extending asynchronous data and content sharing capabilities to enable collaboration with a broader range of external constituents, including customers, partners, and suppliers."
IDC CRM Applications and Customer Experience programme vice president Mary Wardley said the CRM applications market experienced a rebound effect in 2011 that is being carried through well into 2012.
"The ‘century of the customer’ has centered on increasing customer experience and, powered by social media, is motivating organizations to invest in their customer handling infrastructure," Wardley said.
"The move to interact with customers when, where, and how they want is changing the go-to-market strategies of many organizations. Technology is now a requirement to be able to deliver consistency at scale."
In the virtualisation segment, Virtual Machine and Cloud System Software and Virtual Client Computing grew fastest.
