Today IDC published its Worldwide Semiannual Blockchain Spending Guide. IDC says that in 2018 global enterprise blockchain spending was $1.5 billion and forecasts a rise to $2.9 billion this year. The company expects spending to reach $12.4 billion by 2022 representing a compound growth rate of 76% from 2018 to 2022.
The top three sectors for spending in 2019 will be finance including insurance at $1.1 billion, manufacturing and resources sector ($653 million), and retail and professional services ($642 million).
In terms of use cases that will attract the most investment this year, IDC predicts they will be cross border payments and settlements ($453 million) as well trade finance and post-trade settlement ($285 million).
Other major use cases are provenance for manufacturing and asset tracking. Identity is a high priority application across several sectors including banking, government and healthcare.
“While spending for more developed use cases in the financial sector like trade finance and cross-border payments is still healthy and growing strong, relative to six months ago we’ve seen an acceleration in spending across a variety of other areas, such as energy settlements and warranty claims,” said Jessica Goepfert, program vice president, Customer Insights & Analysis.
This reinforces some of the consortium funding details previously published by Ledger Insights.
Geographically, the United States is forecast to the biggest spender in 2019 ($1.1 billion) followed by Europe($674 million) and China ($319 million).
“With enterprises trying to find a balance between decentralizing their business processes while bringing common standards to the blockchain space, the future state of the blockchain world relies on collaboration and building bridges between organizations and communities,” said Stacey Soohoo, research manager, Customer Insights & Analysis. “2019 will be a year of mainstream adoption, but will rely heavily on reshaping the ideology of a blockchain revolution.”
