Strong CDP Growth in the APAC Region at Expense of EMEA Vendors

The Asia Pacific (APAC) region is seeing a growing interest in customer data platforms (CDP), according to the newest CDP Institute report. That interest translates into more CDP vendors taking market share from EMEA-based CDP vendors.

Why this growing interest in CDPs in the region? The pandemic has accelerated organizations’ digital transformations and consumers’ shift to digital experiences, with many retail and manufacturing companies realizing they needed a way to centrally manage customer data to support those experiences.

Many organizations are also realizing their marketing cloud investments aren’t able to support evolving privacy and data regulations, and they can’t bring together all their customer data in the same way an “independent, open, and neutral” CDP can.

CDP Industry Growth

In 2019 there were 14 CDP vendors in the APAC region. In 2021 that number grew by 79% to 25 vendors in 8 countries. In addition, the number of employees increased by 886 to 1689, and the amount of funding for CDP vendors increased by 317%. As a result, 2021 revenue is estimated to be at least US$170 million.

APAC CDP vendors comprise 16% of CDP companies globally and 9% of all funding. They are also younger than most US-based CDPs, with only 36% founded before 2013.

Regional Differences

The CDP market in India, Singapore, and Australia is growing quickly because these regions are more mature in technology and customer experience innovation. Australia is the most mature for data governance due to a small population and the need for companies to work harder with the data they have.

According to the report, India and Singapore have the most vendors and employees. Looking at the chart above, we also see that funding is highest in India, Singapore, Taiwan, and China.

CDP Types Leading the Market

The CDP market in the APAC region is dominated by delivery CDPs (12 vendors), which make up 48% of the market and 69% of employment. Many of these vendors are existing companies that added CDP capabilities to their existing delivery services (such as email).

Along with the twelve delivery CDPs, there are five campaign CDP vendors, 4 data vendors, and 4 analytic CDP vendors. One interesting note is that analytic CDP vendors get the most significant amount of funding (75%), followed by delivery vendors at 42%, and campaign vendors at 40%.

Delivery and campaign vendors are preferred by mid-sized companies with channel managers or marketers looking for a more complete solution.

A Core Part of the Martech Stack

Starting in 2021, CDPs have been seen as a core part of the marketing technology (martech) and data stack. But there’s still confusion in the market with varying definitions and different levels of understanding. Along with not fully understanding the different types of CDPs, some companies aren’t clear on the difference between a CDP and a CRM or DMP, data lake, or a data warehouse.

Conversations around build versus buy also arise often. For example, some companies attempt to build their own CDP and face challenges such as embedding insights into applications and processes or making data available to multiple areas of the company.

Other CDP implementation concerns relate to integrating with legacy technology in the martech stack and figuring out how to react to data in real-time.

Overall, the APAC CDP market is growing steadily, and there is an increasing demand that is pushing this region forward, taking market share from both EMEA and US CDP vendors. However, there is still much work to do to clarify the role of the CDP and implement it properly.

You can check out the full CDP Institute report here.