IDC expects investment in security-related products and services to grow at a robust rate of 14.1% (CAGR) over the forecast period (2020-25) and reach US$39 billion by 2025.
Drivers
The key drivers which have impacted the security market in the region at the height of the pandemic are accelerated digitalization, cloud migration, security transformation, and increased cyber-attacks.
Industry verticals such as banking, telecommunications, federal/central, and state/local government have been the highest spenders on IT security.
Because critical and sensitive data is intrinsic to these industries, having a secured digital ecosystem is a priority.
Together, these industries will constitute more than 50% of the total security spending in the region. The industries seeing the fastest growth in 2021 are state/local government (20%) and utilities (15.5%) – driven by Covid-led digitalization of utility transmission and distribution networks coupled with an increased focus on data security, compliance, and governance.
What companies are buying
Services will remain the largest technology group with more than 45% of the market share in 2021 and the fastest growing sub-market with a CAGR of 14.5% during 2020-25.
Broken down by services category – Managed Security Services and Consulting Services are leading the segment, which accounts for more than 50% of the security services spending. With more organizations adopting the cloud-first strategy and digitally-enabled business environment, their reliability on security partners to address security needs will also increase.
Security hardware will be the second-largest technology group in the security market. Network security which includes Unified Threat Management, IDP, VPN (click here for 6 VPNs for use in Asia), and Firewall will continue to dominate the segment.
These are becoming essential for technology buyers as employees rely on them for their daily work. Security software will grow at 13.2% over the forecast period. Endpoint security, Identity, and Digital Trust Software Solutions will continue to lead the security software market in 2021.
The COVID factor
As Covid-19 disrupts work culture and business ecosystem, security software solutions have become more valuable for all organizations.
“The Covid-19 pandemic will further increase the multitude of security challenges. Organizations are rethinking the resiliency strategy, including cloud adoption, digitalization of business models, and workforce,” said Sharad Kotagi, market analyst at IDC.
He added that investments in digital trust programs (security, privacy, and compliance technologies) will be one of the top priorities of organizations in the region.
Industry segment
Large (500-1000 employees) and very large businesses (1000+ employees) will continue to hold two-thirds of all security-related spending in 2021 with expected growth of 13.4% and 14.7% CAGR respectively over the forecast period.
This growth is driven by a large workforce and the adoption of emerging technologies by large organizations. Medium (100-499 employees) and small businesses (10-99 employees) are expected to spend around $5 billion combined on security solutions in 2021.
