Strategic Intelligence: Application Software Sector Scorecard Q1 2025 Update

Strategic Intelligence: Application Software Sector Scorecard Q1 2025 Update

Summary

The new US tariff announcement has created a challenging environment for application software companies, driving up costs, disrupting supply chains, and creating economic uncertainty. Application software companies must innovate, optimize operations, and navigate regulatory challenges to maintain their market positions.

Key Highlights

• US-based application software companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle will likely face increased operational costs due to the tariffs. These companies rely on global supply chains for hardware and infrastructure, and the tariffs will increase the cost of these components. Application software companies that rely heavily on enterprise customers will be hit by reduced IT budgets and increased costs.
• In addition, the broader economic uncertainty created by the tariffs could reduce consumer and business spending on software. This could impact revenue growth and market expansion plans for these companies. The increased costs and potential price hikes could also affect customer loyalty as businesses and individuals seek more cost-effective alternatives.

• This sector scorecard provides a top-down, comprehensive outlook for the key players in the application software sector over the next two years, based on the key themes set to transform their industry landscape.

• Companies that invest in the right themes become success stories. Those that miss the important themes in their industry end up as failures.
• GlobalData’s thematic research ecosystem is a single, integrated global research platform that provides an easy-to-use framework for tracking all themes across all companies in all sectors. It has a proven track record of identifying the important themes early, enabling companies to make the right investments ahead of the competition, and secure that all-important competitive advantage.
• At GlobalData, we have developed a unique thematic methodology for ranking all major companies in all major sectors based on their relative strength in the big themes that are impacting their industries.
• Our thematic engine tags over 180 million data items across six alternative data sets—patents, jobs, deals, filings, social media, and news—to themes. The vast datasets within our thematic engine help our analysts to produce sector scorecards that identify the companies best placed to succeed in a future filled with multiple disruptive threats.