Asia-Pac SMB SaaS Solutions Market Will Reach $1.5B in 2012

Small and medium businesses in the Asia-Pacific are likely to invest close to US$1.5 billion in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) solutions, according to market intelligence firm AMI-Partners.

The continent has high demand for cloud computing solutions, meaning information and communication technology (ICT) vendors can gear up to make good use of the opportunity, according to the researcher.

Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions have long been the key for SMBs to innovate and streamline their business operation, and this is what drives the market for cloud computing solutions.

AMI forecasts SaaS adoption will more than double by 2015, and this market will see an annual growth of over 30 percent in the Asia Pacific region.

Among the solutions, according to the research firm, pay-as-you-go application provisioning services will see the highest demand.

Last year, AMI predicted that the market for SaaS CRM in the United States would triple by 2015, saying cloud-based business applications were garnering considerable attention from small and medium businesses in North America.

SaaS market is certainly the fastest growing SMB software segment, and given the research report, will continue to outperform the total software market growth in Asia Pacific region threefold.

“Thanks to rising mobile solution and broadband penetration levels, we’re seeing a considerable uptake in SaaS adoption among Asia-Pacific SMBs,” said Stefan Haas, AMI-Partners’ consulting director.

A majority of SMBs are likely to make it a priority to purchase SaaS solutions, as it will allow them to streamline operations and realize incremental business growth through geographical expansions and product and service innovations.

According to the research firm, India and China will account for over 50 percent of total SaaS investment in the region in 2012 and account for the lion’s share of total market growth.

There are three phases in SMBs’ adoption of cloud solutions. Most of the SMBs start with standalone CRM and e-commerce deployments to boost trust and comfort. Later they purchase solutions that increase their productivity and make communication agile. 

Finally, they turn to more mission-critical applications such as industry solutions to polish their business.

“SMBs still carefully weigh the risks related to data security, business continuity and service levels of providers before choosing SaaS services,” said Haas. “Yet our intelligence suggests that SMB IT executives feel increasingly confident in public cloud deployments and conclude that the benefits outweigh potential risks once they have successfully deployed SaaS pilots.”