Worldwide spending on security-related hardware, software, and services is forecast to reach $119.9 billion in 2021, according to new data from IDC (www.idc.com).

With nearly every industry investing in security solutions to meet a wide range of threats and requirements, spending is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6% over the 2016-2021 forecast period, notes the research group. Worldwide spending on security products and services will total $83.5 billion in 2017, an increase of 10.3% over 2016.

"Three overarching trends are driving security spending: a dynamic threat landscape, increasing regulatory pressures, and architectural changes spurred by digital transformation initiatives," said Sean Pike, program vice president for IDC's Security Products and Legal, Risk, and Compliance programs. "While IDC expects spending to continue growing, organizations are actively searching for product and service efficiencies that maximize spend in order to fully address such complex challenges.”

IDC expects security spending to be somewhat evenly spread across four industry sectors in 2017: distribution and services ($19.7 billion), public sector ($18.6 billion), manufacturing and resources ($16.4 billion), and financial ($16.3 billion). By 2021, however, the financial sector is forecast to move ahead of manufacturing and resources due to a 2016-2021 CAGR of 10.2%. Similarly, public sector security spending will nearly pull even with distribution and services by 2021 with a CAGR of 10.3%. The fastest growing sector over the five-year forecast period will be infrastructure with a CAGR of 11.8%.

"Ever-changing security threats, fear of data breaches, and regulatory compliance will continue to drive security investments across all industries," said Eileen Smith, program director, Customer Insights and Analysis. "On a global basis, banks, discrete manufacturers, and federal/central government agencies will spend the most on security products and services throughout the forecast. Combined, these three industries will contribute to 30% of the worldwide total spending in 2017.”

In addition to being among the industries spending the most on security solutions in 2017, federal/central government and banking will be two of the industries that will see the fastest growth in security spending over the five-year forecast, with CAGRs of 10.9% and 10.7%, respectively. The industry that will see the fastest growth is telecommunications, with a CAGR of 12.6%. This growth will enable telecommunications to become the fourth largest industry in terms of total security spend in 2021, moving ahead of the process manufacturing and professional services industries.

More than 80% of security spending in 2017 will go to services and software. Services spending will be led by two of the largest technology categories – managed security services ($15.25 billion) and integration services ($12.5 billion). Software spending will be focused on three categories – endpoint security, identity and access management, and security and vulnerability management – that will make up more than 75% of the software total this year.

Hardware spending will be significantly smaller throughout the forecast, dominated by network security solutions ($13.7 billion in 2017). In addition to being the two largest technology categories, managed security services and network security will also be the fastest growing categories during the 2016-2021 forecast with CAGRs of 14.3% and 11.4%, respectively.