Robotic process automation (RPA) software revenue grew 63.1% in 2018 to $846 million, making it the fastest-growing segment of the global enterprise software market, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner expects RPA software revenue to reach $1.3 billion in 2019.
“The RPA market has grown since our last forecast, driven by digital business demands as organizations look for ‘straight-through’ processing,” said Fabrizio Biscotti, research vice president at Gartner. “Competition is intense, with nine of the top 10 vendors changing market share position in 2018.”
The top-five RPA vendors controlled 47% of the market in 2018. The vendors ranked sixth and seventh achieved triple-digit revenue growth (see Table 1). “This makes the top-five ranking appear largely unsettled,” Biscotti added.
North America continued to dominate the RPA software market, with a 51% share in 2018, but its share dropped by 2 percentage points year over year. Western Europe held the No. 2 position, with a 23% share. Japan came third, with adoption growth of 124% in 2018. “This shows that RPA software is appealing to organizations across the world, due to its quicker deployment cycle times, compared with other options such as business process management platforms and business process outsourcing,” said Biscotti.
