Bengaluru– Indian software market is expected to grow at 11.9 per cent (year-on-year) and touch $5.1 billion by the end of 2018, market research firm IDC said on Monday.

“Collaborative and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications were among the top three fastest-growing software categories in 2017, primarily led by adoption via a Cloud model (consumed as software-as-a-Service)”, Sandeep Kumar Sharma, Associate Research Manager, Software and IT Services, IDC India, said in a statement.

The Indian software market is one of the fastest growing and dynamic markets in the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan region (APeJ), said the “Asia-Pacific Semiannual Software Tracker 1H 2017” report.

Digital transformation initiatives has led the growth story for the software market over the last 12 months and is expected to attract sustained investments by Indian enterprises in 2018 as well.

There was an increasing thrust on security software (second fastest growing software market in the country) in the first half of 2017 as organisations had to contend with the evolving threat landscape (especially with attacks such as WannaCrypt and Petya) and a rise in awareness of the criticality of security to allay business risk.

IDC further predicted that the IT software market will advance at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.8 per cent (for the period 2016-2021) to reach $7.7 billion by the end of 2021. (IANS)