Posted by Singapore: Asia Pacific security spending expected to reach $23.1 billion in 2021. It is a 12.6% increase over 2020, according to IDC.
IDC expects investment in security-related products and services to grow at a five-year CAGR of 13.3% over the forecast period (2019-24) and reach $35 billion by 2024. Increased cloud adoption, massive WFH migration, and transformation projects by enterprises to overcome operational challenges are driving this growth.
Banking, telecommunications, federal/central and state/local government which are more targeted by threat actors for fraud, cybercrime, and breaches, will drive the security spending in 2021.
Together, these industries will constitute half of the total Asia Pacific security spending. State/local government (18.5%), transportation (13.9%), and retail (13.7%) are among the industries that are seeing the highest increase in security spending this year.
These industries’ security spending has an increased focus on data security, e-commerce, work from home, digitalization of logistic monitoring, payments and contracts. And in playing catch up due to underspending in the area in previous years.
“2020 defined the importance of digital for everyone globally, but it also highlighted shortcomings in security strategies,” said Simon Piff, VP – Trust, Security, and Blockchain Research – IDC Asia/Pacific.
“While leading organisations are starting to adopt a more platform-based approach, the majority are still buying point-solutions to address specific concerns. This majority needs to change their mindset and invest more strategically into their security architectures,” added Piff.
Having invested in security last year, enterprises realize their limited expertise that is now encouraging them to rely on trusted security partner to fulfill their security needs. As expected, Services will be both the largest and the fastest growing category among security markets, accounting for almost half of security spending throughout the forecast period at a 13.4% five-year CAGR.
Among services, managed security services will be delivering around 40% of the security services spending throughout the forecast. Followed by consulting services and integration services. As the IT environment becomes more diverse and complex, enterprises are more dependent on managed service providers for security.
Security hardware will be the second largest of the security market. It will be dominated by network security needs – including firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention, unified threat management and virtual private networks.
Security software spending is led by endpoint security, and Identity and Digital Trust Software, delivering more than half of the overall security software spend in 2021. Driving the growth in the security software category is the concern of enterprises to protect devices and networks used by the remote workforce from cyberattacks.
Large (500-1000 employees) and very large businesses (more than 1000 employees) will be responsible for two-thirds of all security-related spending in 2021. These two segments will also see the strongest spending growth over the forecast period with CAGRs of 12.7% and 13.7% respectively.
A large workforce and the adoption of emerging technologies by large organisations will drive this growth. Medium (100-499 employees) and small businesses (10-99 employees) are expected to spend over $5 billion combined on security solutions in 2021.
Asia Pacific security spending
In the Asia Pacific, investments in security-related products and solutions (i.e. endpoint security, VPN, and firewalls) will experience double-digit growth in 2021.
“This is due to the increased spending by both governments and enterprises (particularly in the banking, telecom, and professional services industry) to enable a safe, efficient, and trustworthy digital environment for the expanded remote workforce,” added Sharad Kotagi, Associate Market Analyst – IDC IT Spending Guides, Customer Insights & Analysis.
From a geographical perspective, China alone will account for more than 40% of total Asia Pacific security spending in 2021. Chine spending is projected to take off at a five-year CAGR of 16.8% during the forecast period.
Telecommunications and State/Local Government are the two leading drivers of the Chinese security market, collectively accounting for one-third of overall China spend in 2021.
Australia and India are the next two largest countries in terms of security spending. These two countries have the presence of a large number of businesses catering to domestic as well as international customers. Together, these countries will account for 26% of the overall Asia Pacific security spending in 2021.
(Note: Asia Pacific security spending doesn’t include Japan)