Salesforce says IDC ranked it #1 CRM provider for 13 straight years, citing 20% market share

Salesforce is renewing its push for “agentic” enterprise software after International Data Corporation (IDC) ranked the company as the No. 1 CRM vendor for the 13th consecutive year. In a June 4 statement, Salesforce said IDC’s latest Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker placed it at the top of the CRM market, with a 20.0% market share in 2025.

Salesforce said IDC’s CRM category is based on several functional submarkets - covering sales force productivity and management, marketing campaign management, customer service, contact center, advertising, and digital commerce applications. Under that scope, the company reiterated that it led all CRM vendors in 2025, according to IDC.

Beyond the top overall CRM ranking, Salesforce highlighted additional “long-standing leadership” metrics across major parts of customer relationship management. The company said it ranked No. 1 in Sales for 14 consecutive years, No. 1 in Customer Service for 13 consecutive years, and No. 1 in Marketing for seven consecutive years. It also cited No. 1 positions in Model-Driven Application Platforms for 11 consecutive years, Enterprise Community for 11 consecutive years, and Integration for four consecutive years.

Salesforce also pointed to a newer measurement category from IDC: Agent Build and Deploy. The company said this is the first time IDC has published market shares for that area, described by Salesforce as currently in “hypergrowth.” Salesforce stated it grew faster than other players in the segment and took the No. 2 position with a 17.5% market share, citing IDC’s Semiannual Core AI Software Tracker for H2 2025.

In its remarks, Salesforce framed the rankings as validation of what it calls the “Agentic Enterprise” - an organization where teams automate sales, service, and marketing with humans working alongside AI agents. Salesforce said it is putting Agentforce “at the heart of our strategy,” and quoted David Schmaier, President and Chief Strategy Officer, linking the CRM ranking to customer outcomes and the company’s agent-focused roadmap.

Agent Build and Deploy, as Salesforce characterizes it, refers to the tooling and capabilities that help enterprises create and launch AI agents - rather than using agents only as prepackaged chat or automation. By tying its CRM leadership to a separate agent category, Salesforce is effectively arguing that its market position extends from traditional workflow software into the next generation of AI-enabled customer operations.

In a broader technology context, CRM remains a highly competitive corner of enterprise software where vendors are increasingly adding AI features to speed up sales outreach, service resolution, and marketing targeting. IDC’s decision to publish market shares for Agent Build and Deploy indicates that “agentic” workflows are being treated as a measurable market segment rather than a general product trend. Salesforce’s emphasis on consecutive rankings suggests it wants to anchor that transition in its established customer base and suite of connected applications.

Still, key details that would normally help an outside reader evaluate the methodology - such as the exact vendor inclusion rules inside IDC’s CRM definition, and how IDC aggregated the underlying functional markets - are not fully reproduced in Salesforce’s summary. In addition, the full IDC report itself was not accessible from the Salesforce page during this write-up, limiting verification beyond the company’s reported figures and timeframes.

What to watch next is whether IDC’s Agent Build and Deploy segmentation continues to expand in future tracker editions, and whether Salesforce can improve from its stated No. 2 position there. Investors and customers will also likely look for whether Salesforce’s agent strategy is accompanied by measurable operational outcomes - such as adoption of Agentforce across Sales and Service workflows - rather than rankings alone.