BDA Revenue in Western Europe Will Reach $34.1 Billion in 2017

IDC Worldwide Semiannual Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide forecasts that Western European revenues for Big Data and business analytics (BDA) will reach $34.1billion in 2017, an increase of 10.4% over 2016. Commercial purchases of BDA-related hardware, software, and services are expected to maintain a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.2% through 2020 when revenues will be more than $43 billion.

Banking, discrete manufacturing, and process manufacturing are the three largest industries to invest in Big Data and analytics solutions over the forecast period, and by 2020 will account for more than a third of total IT spending on BDA solutions. However, the industries that will show the highest growth over the forecast period are professional services, telecommunications, utilities, and retail.

Western Europe lags the worldwide market in overall growth, with a CAGR of 9.2% for the region, while worldwide spending will grow at a CAGR of 11.9%. Software investments will grow to more than $17 billion in 2020, led by purchases of end-user query, reporting, and analysis tools and data warehouse management tools.

Cognitive software platforms and non-relational analytic data stores will experience strong growth (CAGRs of 39.8% and 38.6% respectively) as companies expand their Big Data and analytic activities. BDA-related purchases of servers and storage will grow at a CAGR of 12.4%, reaching $4.4 billion in 2020.

Very large businesses (those with more than 1,000 employees) will be responsible for more than 60% of all BDA spending throughout the forecast and IDC expects this group of companies to pass the $25 billion level by 2020. IT spending on Big Data and analytics solutions by businesses with fewer than 10 employees is expected to be below 1% of the total, even though these businesses account for over 90% of all businesses in Western Europe.