Global collaboration apps revenue grew 28.4% year-over-year in 2021; Its fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth, according to IDC

NEEDHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that global collaboration app market revenue grew 28.4% year-over-year in 2021 to $29.1 billion. This growth was spurred by a range of factors, including companies expanding collaboration to more people, purchasing and integrating multiple solutions to better meet business needs, as well as increases pricing and/or feature upgrades. And the growth extended to all collaboration markets and submarkets identified by IDC, including team collaboration apps, conferencing, virtual events, enterprise communities, and messaging apps.

The tailwinds behind the market are obvious: collaborative apps enable people to work from anywhere, create a more productive and inclusive work community, and are essential to a company’s digital transformation. And the growth of more connected frontline workers – and all other types of workers – will continue over the forecast period.

“The expectation and adoption of these apps inside and outside the workplace is now a given,” said wayne kurtzmanvice president of research, Social, Communities and Collaboration at IDC. “In the years to come, collaboration platforms will become more attractive, visual, functional and community-powered. These features, aided by intelligence, will evolve rapidly and support working from anywhere. A new range Measurement tools will also grow to tie business to the customer. IDC estimates that the collaborative applications market will reach $63.8 billion by 2026.”

Highlights of IDC’s forecast include the following:

• The increase in the number of partners and customers wishing to collaborate with a given company is significant and continues to grow. Yet many companies are slow to accept the offer of collaboration.

• Business communities will be a market to watch. Businesses that don’t provide a well-moderated community will have users, even business-to-business (B2B), quickly forming communities where the business can’t leverage them.

• Virtual events, or perhaps better called digital events, represent a great opportunity to engage audiences who may not be able to make it to key events. Supported with communities, this creates ongoing engagements at the pace of the individual.

• A fully connected enterprise, empowered by collaboration and intelligence, is already beginning to create a new era of metrics. The new KPIs will include Key Behavioral Indicators (KBIs) that examine the effects of situation management, creativity, collaboration and problem solving and will be linked to actual customer results. Integrations are the key to this evolution.

The IDC report, Global Collaboration Applications Forecast, 2022-2026: Adoption Creates the Collaboration Stack (Doc #US49432322), examines the future evolution of the collaborative apps market and how we connect, meet, collaborate, form community and measure the impact of collaboration. The report provides a five-year forecast of worldwide collaboration application revenue in current and constant dollars, as well as revenue by geographic region and deployment type (cloud and non-cloud).

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the world’s leading provider of business information, consulting services and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,300 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on IT technology, benchmarking, and procurement, as well as industry opportunities and trends in more than 110 countries. IDC’s analysis and insight help IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based technology decisions and achieve their key business goals. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the global leader in technology media, data and marketing services. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC-Blog for industry news and insights.