
Spending on information security and risk management technology and services in New Zealand is set to decline in 2020, despite the expected increase in the global market driven by demand for cloud services.
During this year, New Zealand is projected to spend $611 million on infosec technology, a decline of 3.8 per cent.
This is contrast to the global average, which is anticipated to see infosec technology spending increase by 2.4 per cent to US$123.8 billion, according to data from Gartner.
While up, this is lower than Gartner’s initial estimate of 8.7 per cent growth, made back in December 2019.
Cloud security spending is set to drive this global growth, with Lawrence Pingree, managing vice president at Gartner, claiming the market segment to be the main driver of overall global infosec market.
“There are a few factors in favour of some security market segments, such as cloud-based offerings and subscriptions, being propped up by demand or delivery model. Some security spending will not be discretionary and the positive trends cannot be ignored,” he said.
Specifically, spending on cloud security is expected to see a global rise of 33.3 per cent over the year to US$585 million.
Meanwhile, Pingree expects the whole infosec market, much like other IT markets, to be negatively impacted this year by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Overall we expect a pause and a reduction of growth in both security software and services during 2020,” he said.
Following on from cloud security, data security is expected to be the second-most growing segment globally, rising 7.2 per cent to US$2.9 billion.
Third place is a tie between infrastructure protection and identity access management with a rise of 5.8 per cent to US$ 17.5 billion and US$10.4 billion, respectively.
The only two market segments to record declines are projected to be the network security equipment market, with a decline of 12.6 per cent to US$11.7 billion, and consumer security software with a decline of 0.3 per cent to US$6.2 billion.