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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Technology Stocks
SAP Takes On Oracle and Salesforce.com In The Cloud
According to the Gartner report Market Share Analysis: ERP Software, Worldwide, 2011, SAP was the global leader in enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers, with a 26% market share and reporting 13% growth over the previous year. Overall, the ERP market reported low double-digit growth last year as weak economic conditions curtailed IT budgets. SAP remains focused on gathering a bigger market share and is now competing with Oracle and Salesforce.com within cloud computing, big data analytics, and enterprise social software.
Accenture Enters Marketing Services with Acquisition
According to IDC’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market forecast, the worldwide BPO market is projected to grow 5.3% annually over the period 2011-2016 to $202.6 billion. IDC expects the U.S. market to grow annually at 4.2% during the period to reach $92 billion in 2016. The BPO market is driving growth in the performance of global leader Accenture’s (Nasdaq:ACN) performance as well.
Alibaba and Baidu Take an Increasingly Internatioanal Approach
As of June 2012, China had 538 million Internet users. Reports reveal that of that number, 194 million Internet users in the country shopped online. E-commerce has seen strong growth in China where, according to the Boston Consulting Group, online retail sales are projected to grow to $360 billion by 2015 from $121 billion in 2011. Another report shows that during the current year alone, online retail sales grew 53% in the country. Despite this growth, online sales account for a mere 2% of China’s total retail sales.
Yelp’s Business Model Continues to Struggle
According to IAB’s H1 report for this year, Internet advertising in the U.S. grew 14% over the year to $17 billion. Internet advertising growth was driven by an improvement in mobile advertising, which grew 95% to $1.2 billion during the period. Digital video ads grew 18% to over $1 billion, and display ad revenues grew 33% to $5.6 billion. The report reveals that although bigger players are continuing to remain the larger contributor of advertising spending, spending by small businesses is picking up. Overall, retail advertisers accounted for 20% of the total ad spend.
Fab.com to Cross $100 Million in 2012
Continuing with our theme of niche e-commerce, here is another interesting vendor, Fab.com. Fab.com is an online retailer of home design products offering to their members at big discounts.
A Comprehensive Digital Strategy at One Kings Lane
A few years ago, I wrote about the emerging trend of niche e-commerce and the need for entrepreneurs in the space to internalize web 3.0 concepts to ensure a differentiated offering. Over the past few days, we have looked at several such niche providers within the online retail space. Another worth mentioning in the same segment is One Kings Lane.
Karmaloop Projects More Than $200 Million in 2012 Revenue
A recent Forrester report, U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2011 to 2016, estimates that online retail shopping in the country will grow 45% from $226 billion for the current year to $327 billion in 2016. Last year, the online retail industry in the U.S. was estimated to be worth $202 billion. Forrester estimates that the growth will come from an increase in the number of online shoppers and the average amount they spend. U.S. online consumers are projected to grow from 167 million this year to 192 million by 2016. The average amount spent by these consumers online is projected to grow from $1,207 this year to $1,738 by 2016.
Wayfair Projects Over $600 Million in 2012 Revenue
The research group Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) predicts that global business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce sales will be worth $1.25 trillion by next year. In 2011, global B2C e-commerce sales were estimated to have grown 20% over the year to $961 billion. Growth will be driven a continuous increase in the number of Internet users, which is predicted to rise from 2.2 billion by the end of last year to 3.5 billion by 2013. The U.S. is the largest e-commerce market worldwide, with growth predicted to continue at 10%-15% annually over the coming years.