PLM Market Moves Ahead with 10.4% Market Growth
 
 

The global Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market experienced stronger than expected growth in 2006 as more companies continued to realize the benefits of adopting Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) techniques to improve business performance.

According to CIMdata, Inc.'s recent research, the overall PLM market grew 10.4 percent to $20.1 billion in 2006 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 8.5 percent to reach approximately $30 billion by 2011. This strong growth rate is attributed to continued recognition of the value of PLM in improving companies’ business performance

The PLM information authoring and analysis applications (Tools) segment saw significant growth in 2006 with $13.2 billion spent by companies globally on PLM Tools such as mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD), computed-aided manufacturing (CAM), electronic design automation (EDA), engineering simulation and analysis, technical publishing, and others.

The fastest-growing sector of PLM is for expenditures on cPDm, which is focused on collaboration, management and sharing of product-related information.

Looking deeper into the fast-growing cPDm sector of the overall PLM market, CIMdata statistics indicate that cPDm growth continued in all industry and geographic sectors for 2006. Both EMEA (Europe, Mid-East and Africa) and the Americas maintained solid growth with the Americas growing 14.1% and EMEA up 13.8%. Asia-Pacific continues to be a major opportunity

Companies in a wide range of industry segments invest in cPDm. Automotive and high-tech continue to be the largest cPDm adopters in 2006. Aerospace and defense (A&D) and fabrication and assembly (F&A), which includes white goods, machine tools, retail and apparel, and others, had solid revenues. All process industry sectors had solid growth. This includes consumer-focused process industries (consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, and pharmaceuticals), petrochemical, and utilities. The ‘other’ category (shipbuilding, construction, infrastructure and non-traditional sectors) also showed strength based on increasing adoption of PLM by those industries

A widely diverse group of suppliers provide PLM-solutions and services. Some of these suppliers focus on specific technologies or industries such as MDA, EDA, CASE, or analysis and simulation. Others deliver broad management and collaboration solutions that are the information backbone for PLM initiatives

Each year, PLM-related technologies and services are provided by more companies representing all sectors of the PLM industry. To illustrate this growing and wide range of companies that participate in the overall PLM market, the suppliers of PLM-related solutions that derived the most revenues from the market are shown

 
The PLM market remains robust and will continue to have significant growth over the forecast period (2007 through 2011) as companies continue to invest in solutions that can provide them with sustainable business advantage and profitability. Evolution of PLM’s definition and scope will continue to fuel growth in both software and services as PLM becomes more important and embedded within a business’ overall enterprise.
 
© 2007 EDS Technologies.