MILAN, Italy, July 20, 2010 – IDC Retail Insights recently released a new report, which provides a competitive analysis of IT vendors in the EMEA retail industry. The study includes a competitive mapping of the major retail IT vendors and revenue estimates for the EMEA retail sector. Vendors included in the study are the top 10 players for each of the three technology categories — hardware, software, and services.

"While our vendor revenue estimates and demand-side data confirm the predominance of IBM overall, Oracle/SAP in retail software, Accenture in retail IT services, and Wincor Nixdorf/NCR/Fujitsu in store systems, the competitive positioning of the top vendors in EMEA retail is rapidly evolving and diversifying," said Ivano Ortis, research director, IDC Retail Insights. "Retailers should carefully consider how these changes will impact their IT strategy and IT selection decisions."

Vendor revenue estimates for 2009 provide an overview of the retail IT players and their penetration in the EMEA retail sector. The top 26 IT vendors covered in this study accounted for around half of total EMEA retail IT spending in 2009. The vendors are ranked according to market share estimates, using IDC's European Vertical Markets 2009 survey and Worldwide Retail IT Spending Guide 2009-2 data, and retail alignment, estimated by IDC Retail Insights via a set of indicators.

Key findings from this IDC Retail Insights study are as follows:

• IBM has the largest share of the market compared with other vendors covered in this study.

• While Oracle and SAP continue to run head to head in the retail software market, a number of differences emerge in the retail software vendor positioning (this also includes Aldata, Epicor/CRS, JDA, Retalix, SAS, and Teradata), solution roadmap, and retail industry strategy.

• Store-system-centric vendors (Fujitsu, NCR, Wincor Nixdorf) have their own distinct approaches to self-service, mobile, and non-store solution strategies, and are adding more capabilities around software and solution-centric services.

• Accenture continues to lead the IT services pure plays.

• HP and Microsoft stand out from the crowd of horizontal vendors.

For the purpose of this study, IDC Retail Insights has analyzed more than 50 companies across a variety of categories, including:

• Hardware vendors: These vendors are either selling horizontal products such as desktops, laptops, servers, and network equipments or, in the case of NCR, Toshiba, IBM, and Wincor Nixdorf, PoS and store systems. Some of these vendors are also offering software and services to retail organizations, for example IBM and HP.

• Software vendors: These large software vendors are primarily selling enterprise applications into the retail industry or variants of their horizontal offerings to cater to retail-specific needs such as datawarehousing, merchandising, and supply chain applications. Intense M&A activity in the past few years has resulted in more vertically-aligned global software vendors, as their enterprise solutions portfolio has been enriched by select retail-specific applications.

• Services firms: Services firms have typically verticalized their offerings to cater to specific industry needs and to provide a variety of IT and business services, including consulting, systems integration, application development, and IT outsourcing.

• Retail-specific application vendors: These vendors typically provide a combination of IT services and industry-specific applications that they have developed over several years, leveraging their deep industry knowledge and heavy or in certain cases even exclusive retail industry focus.

More can be found in the IDC Retail Insights study Vendor Assessment: Top 26 IT Vendors in EMEA Retail, 2010 (Doc #GIPW01S/ June 2010), by Ivano Ortis presents a competitive mapping of the major retail IT vendors in EMEA. The study also presents revenue estimates for the vendors analyzed.

Join now the online conversations IDC Retail Insights community, read Ivano Ortis' blog posts here!

This report is available for purchase at www.idc-ri.com

For media enquiries or more information on how to get a copy of this report, please contact: Cinzia Rinelli, IDC's European Vertical Markets and IDC Insights EMEA, +39 02 28457 367 and crinelli@idc.com

About IDC Retail Insights

IDC Retail Insights provides research-based advisory services and custom research focused on market and technology developments in the retail industry. Staffed by senior analysts with decades of direct industry experience, IDC Retail Insights covers the entire retail value chain – from global sourcing and supply chain to demand-based merchandise planning, straight through to the consumer shopping experience – providing independent, timely, and relevant analysis focused on key business issues. IDC Retail Insights provides a portfolio of research and advisory services that are relevant to the needs of retailers and retail IT suppliers. IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology market.

IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology, media, research, and events company.

For more information, please visit www.idc-ri.com, email info@idc-ri.com.

Contact