The global expenditure on IT security services and solutions is anticipated to rise to 219 billion US dollars this year, according to an IDC forecast. This would represent a rise of 12.1 percent over 2022, and similar levels of growth are projected for the years that follow.
By 2026, the report goes on to say, the worldwide investment in hardware, software and services related to cyber security is expected to increase to almost $300 billion. According to the experts, the key drivers propelling this growth are the ongoing threat posed by cyberattacks and the demands of providing secure, hybrid work environments, in addition to meeting data protection and governance requirements.
“Spend on security products and services will continue to outperform growth in overall IT spending,” forecasts Serena Da Rold, Associate Research Director at IDC Data & Analytics. More mature sectors and larger organizations will face above-average costs as they continue to invest in cutting-edge security solutions to stave off ransomware attacks on their distributed workforces and safeguard critical infrastructure, which increasingly needs to be connected to the IT network.
As far as verticals are concerned, IDC anticipates the largest investments in IT security products and services to be made by banks, the manufacturing industry, service providers and the public sector. Banks and manufacturers are expected to split their investments equally between software and services, while the largest share of their expenditure will go to managed security services to protect them from cyberattacks. For professional services, on the other hand, the main focus will be on software facilitating governance, risk and compliance (GRC) as well as endpoint security. The main focus for Federal/Central Government spending will still be on services, the experts predict. All in all, the four sectors mentioned above are expected to account for more than a third of all security expenditure in 2023.
Broken down according to technologies, software is the largest technology group and represents almost half of the total expenditure. Within software, endpoint security is the leading category for investment. This is followed by software for identity and digital trust, cyber security analytics, intelligence, response and orchestration. The second-largest technology group is services, where the managed security services category alone accounts for $42 billion of the expected expenditure. In the hardware group of categories, appliances for network security will dominate spending.
From a geographic perspective, the United States will be the largest market in 2023, followed by Western Europe, APAC (excluding Japan and China) and the People’s Republic of China. The IDC projects that China will experience the highest annual growth rate (CAGR) in spending between 2021 and 2026, increasing at 18.8 percent per annum. “The total IT security spending in Europe will keep on growing at more than 10% over the forecast period,” explains Stefano Perini, Senior Research Analyst, IDC European Data & Analytics. The majority of that spending will be dedicated to services supporting companies with limited competency in the field of security to safeguard their data and assets from cyber threats such as ransomware, which have been exacerbated by the current geopolitical situation.
