“Asia/Pacific Blockchain technology investments are estimated to be more than 3 Billon USD by 2023,” said Ashutosh Bisht Senior Research Manager at IDC Asia/Pacific. “The financial services sector will dominate the blockchain spending for the overall forecast period, with major investments towards Tracking, tracing, and managing cross-border/international payments and settlements, Providing a record of transactions in payments between parties involved in the transaction is another focus area for the financial enterprises in the region,” Bisht added.

At the end of 2019, IDC projects the following in terms of spending in blockchain solutions: banking, securities & investment services, and insurance industries to invest a combined total of USD 296.3 million; driven by the discrete and process manufacturing industries, the manufacturing and resources sector are predicted to invest USD 91.7 million; the distribution and services sector led by the retail and professional services industries are estimated to spend USD 89.4 million; and the infrastructure sector will see the fastest growth (CAGR 81.2%), followed by the public sector (CAGR 73.6%) over the 2018-23 forecast period.

The blockchain use cases that will have significant investment over the forecast period are trade finance & post-trade/transaction settlements, cross-border payments & settlements, and regulatory compliance. Combined, the three use cases will make up of more than 40.3% of the total blockchain spending. All the use cases identified by IDC will see significant spending growth over the 2018-23 forecast period, among them with the fastest spending growth (CAGR) are energy settlements, and property ownership management.

IT services and business services combined will represent 60% of blockchain spending in 2019, with IT services slightly receiving more investment. Blockchain platform under software will be the second largest technology category, accounting for 27.3% of the total spending in 2019.

Asia/Pacific contributes around 19.3% of the overall worldwide spending on blockchain, topped by US and Western Europe in 2019. Over the 2018-23 forecast period, China will contribute about 68% of all blockchain spending in Asia/Pacific, it will see a significant spending growth (CAGR 65.7%), while Asia/Pacific records 50.3% CAGR.

"The adoption rate of Blockchain technology has been growing at a steady pace. Use cases leveraging on Blockchain are maturing as well, filtering out the overhyped or solutions overselling the technology from the implementations where blockchain brings value to the ecosystems. The technology is here to stay, organizations need to assess the benefits that blockchain can bring to the business like the way it assesses other emerging technology. Identifying realistic areas of implementation where the technology can reduce cost and increase efficiency. With proper analysis, leveraging the adoption of blockchain, can assist organizations to enhance their digital transformation journey," says Jeff Xie, Senior Market Analyst at IDC Asia/Pacific.

The Worldwide Semiannual Blockchain Spending Guide quantifies the emerging blockchain market by providing spending data for ten technologies across 19 industries and 17 use cases in nine geographic regions. IDC defines blockchain as a digital, distributed ledger of transactions or records.

The ledger, which stores the information or data, exists across multiple participants in a peer-to-peer network. There is no single, central repository that stores the ledger. Distributed ledgers technology (DLT) allows new transactions to be added to an existing chain of transactions using a secure, digital or cryptographic signature. Spending associated with various cryptocurrencies that utilize blockchain and distributed ledgers technology, such as Bitcoin, is not included in the spending guide.

Unlike any other research in the industry, the comprehensive spending guide was designed to help IT decision makers to clearly understand the industry-specific scope and direction of blockchain spending today and over the next five years.