Worldwide Automated Software Quality Market Shares, 2022: Enabling High-Velocity Quality Execution for Dynamic Innovation

This IDC study provides an analysis of the 2022 automated software quality (ASQ) vendor market shares. It discusses IDC's ASQ assessment with specific vendor analysis for a market that evolved with a second year of double-digit growth of 10.5% to $4.1 billion in 2022 (as compared with 12.8% growth to $3.7 billion in 2021 on updated numbers). Organizations invested deeply in ASQ solutions to address increased software delivery complexity and velocity driven by a variety of vectors (including business, technology, software sourcing, and diverse platform deployment, collaboration, and cloud demands). Enhanced and evolving analytics with generative artificial intelligence, other AI and ML, and emerging leverage of robotic process automation (RPA) improved ease of access and data leverage. All major ASQ solution providers experienced some revenue increases because of significant digital innovation and DevOps engagement, in the context of competitive pressures for high-quality, secure software delivery and a global economy that remained volatile and unpredictable. This market growth occurred even with the challenges of evolving product releases, shifts to microservices and cloud delivery models, acquisition transitions, and encroachment by open source tools. A major revenue player, OpenText-Micro Focus, at 9.3% share (down from Micro Focus' 12.3% revenue share in 2020), held steady overall with an IDC estimated growth of 0.5%. Microsoft had growth of 2.5%, Tricentis had growth of 29.4%, and SmartBear grew around 12%, according to IDC estimates. Midsize innovative vendors in emerging technology areas such as mobile, code analytics, software quality analysis and measurement (SQAM) and application security testing (AST), and cloud testing contributed to improved ASQ growth in 2022. We are also observing the impact of OSS usage and integration by vendors (such as Selenium and Cucumber). We also saw acquisitions during 2022 and in 2023 so far. Longer term and moving into 2H23, the ASQ market is slated for an overall trajectory of growth. IDC expects ongoing acquisitions in the near term as enterprise providers seek to broaden their ASQ portfolios including value-centric capabilities and as organizations must respond to increasing levels of technology and edge platform complexity while driving innovation with hybrid work."In a global economy that experienced continuing volatility during 2022, demand for digitization and rapid delivery of high-quality software saw increased investment and demand for ASQ solutions and a second year of double-digit growth, along with acquisitions and shifting of major vendor allocations for enterprise ASQ. Market and product evolution occurred as innovators executed high growth and larger vendors delivered more complete quality and life-cycle management solutions, and consolidation continues," says Melinda Ballou, research director for Agile ALM, Quality, and Portfolio Strategies at IDC. "As a result of emerging AI, ML, and RPA technologies and the earlier disruption and ongoing software quality and deployment challenges, we saw increased ASQ investments. Smaller vendors continue to play a crucial role for market innovation, as exemplified in cross-stack testing, quality measurement with static and dynamic analyses and security leverage, and agile, embedded, and mobile solutions; while these areas have been dominated by small and medium-sized companies, we see enterprise and suite providers engaging as well. We expect additional acquisitions, and despite a volatile worldwide economic outlook resulting from the geopolitical conflict and environment challenges, we expect strong ASQ growth in the 2023-2027 time frame."