Oracle is the fastest growing stand-alone business intelligence (BI) platform vendor in Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, according to Gartner.

Based on a recent Gartner report, Oracle registered 64.8% revenue growth in the stand-alone BI market in Asia Pacific in 2005, compared to the previous year. Average market growth in the stand-alone BI platform market was 12.1%.  In India, Oracle grew fastest, registering 115.9 % year-on-year (2004-2005) total software revenue growth in 2005 for stand-alone BI platforms, surpassing the average market growth of 29.2 %.

"Leading organizations in the region are leveraging the Oracle Business Intelligence platform to exploit their information assets more efficiently for sustainable competitive advantage," said Ricky Kapur, general manager, Business Intelligence, Oracle Asia Pacific.

"The increasing price wars and customer churn are forcing telecom providers to introduce value added services, which are best addressed through BI," said SPS Grover, vice president, Technology Sales, Oracle India. "The boom in knowledge process outsourcing centres, IT enabled services companies and the retail sector will also see a demand for BI rise in the country."

IDC predicts that in 2006-2007, a new wave of investment in BI applications will appear as demand grows for "BI for the masses," requiring more scalable applications with easier-to-use interfaces.

"Pervasive business intelligence will drive the next wave of BI deployments in Asia Pacific including in India," said Kapur.

According to Gartner, the Asia Pacific BI market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.6% from 2004 to 2009, compared to the worldwide growth at 7.3%.

With a unified portfolio of integrated business analytics software, Oracle is positioned to improve business visibility, while helping to reduce the cost and complexity of deploying and maintaining enterprise BI solutions.