Western European Blockchain Spending Will Grow to $1.8 Billion by 2021

Western European Blockchain Spending Will Grow to $1.8 Billion by 2021
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According to IDC, Western Europe will be the second largest region at a worldwide level, starting from around $200 million in 2017, including all the experimentation projects.

The initial investment in proof-of-concept cases will nearly triple the spending in 2018, to reach $1.8 billion in 2021. There is interest in blockchain across industries, with the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) expected to be 66.6% for 2016-2021.

Blockchain spending will be driven by the financial sector (46.7% of 2018 spending), led by the banking industry, which will account for around $260 million of the total. The second largest spender will be the distribution and services sector (nearly $120 million in 2018), with the retail and professional services industries as the largest, while the manufacturing and resources sector ($112 million in 2018) will be driven by the discrete and process manufacturing industries. IDC expects the highest growth to be in telecommunications (79.1% CAGR), professional services (77.2% CAGR), and healthcare (76.7% CAGR).

When considering use cases, within the financial sector there are numerous emerging areas, including cross-border payments and settlements, custody and asset tracking, identity management, regulatory compliance, and trade finance and post-trade/transaction settlements and transaction agreements. In the distribution and services sector and the manufacturing and resources sectors, blockchain lends itself to use cases such as asset/goods management, lot lineage/provenance, and cross-border payments and settlements.

From a technology perspective, hardware will take a very small share of spending, with the major investments in services, which in 2018 will account for around 68% of Western European blockchain spending; the two main components, IT services and business services, will be well balanced across the forecast. Software will account for less than a quarter of spending, with the blockchain platform the main driver, and one of the fastest growing categories overall, along with security software.