According to an IDC report, China's PLM software total market size reached 35.1 billion yuan RMB in 2024, with an annual growth rate of 21.6%, marking a 5.6 percentage point increase from the previous year's growth rate. While market growth has shown some recovery, widespread feedback indicates that market competition has intensified further, with more prevalent phenomena of declining unit prices and extended decision cycles.
From a competitive landscape perspective, Siemens, Dassault Systèmes, and PTC continue to experience slowing growth but remain firmly positioned as the top three market leaders. Notably, Siemens' market share declined from 14.3% in 2023 to 11.3%, while Dassault Systèmes dropped from 10.2% to 8.0%. UFIDA Zhishikai, KINGDEE INT'L (00268), Digiwin (300378.SZ), SPSoft, CAXA, and COSINE rank fourth through ninth respectively.
The competitive intensity in this market shows no signs of easing in the short term. However, from a long-term perspective, as Chinese manufacturing continues advancing toward research and development innovation and vendor positioning becomes increasingly clear, the market is expected to gradually return to rationality.
The Chinese SaaS PLM software sub-market reached 1.81 billion yuan RMB in 2024, with an annual growth rate of 21.9%, slightly higher than the overall PLM software market growth rate, though still accounting for only 5.25% of the PLM software market. IDC research shows that an increasing number of vendors have launched cloud-native PLM products. While end users still have concerns about storing design and development data on public clouds, usage rates are showing an upward trend. With the increase in successful end-user case studies, improvement of SaaS products, and maturation of cloud security technologies, particularly the enhancement of AI capabilities on public clouds, AI+SaaS is expected to become one of the main growth drivers in the PLM market.
Based on PLM industry commonalities and vendor distribution concentration, IDC categorizes PLM into eight major industries: high-tech electronics and computer communications, equipment manufacturing, automotive OEMs and automotive parts, aerospace and shipbuilding, consumer goods industry (pharmaceuticals, food, beverages, tobacco, fashion), raw materials industry (petrochemicals, steel and non-ferrous metals, paper, rubber, plastics), home appliances, and new energy (photovoltaics, lithium batteries, energy storage, etc.).
IDC research indicates that China's total PLM solutions market (including software and services, excluding hardware) reached 53.2 billion yuan RMB in 2024. The top three industries by market size are high-tech electronics and computer communications, equipment manufacturing, and automotive OEMs and parts, while home appliances and new energy markets have experienced some growth deceleration. This market remains dominated by discrete manufacturing industries, with process industries such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, steel, and food and beverages accounting for only 20% of the market.
The report also highlights that major market changes in 2024 include AI restructuring industrial software, Chinese manufacturing going global, large-scale equipment updates and consumer goods trade-ins, and the mutual integration of industrial software and industrial internet markets.
IDC provides several recommendations for technology service providers in the report: focus on cash flow, productization as fundamental capability, industry specialization as competitive moat, ecosystem development as barrier, and integration into local compliance and industry standards as prerequisites for global expansion.
Du Yanze, Senior Research Manager for China's Manufacturing Industry at IDC, stated that Chinese enterprises' R&D investment intensity continues to grow, and the long-term trend of manufacturing companies shifting from competing on price to competing on innovation remains effective. The incremental sources of industrial digitalization markets are also transitioning from manufacturing at the bottom of the smile curve to upstream product development. After rapid development in recent years, China's PLM market has entered an intense midfield phase. While helping manufacturing enterprises counter involution through innovation, the industry itself has fallen into competitive involution. It is hoped that vendors can return to rationality, shifting from competing on price to competing on delivery quality, jointly maintaining healthy long-term industry development.