E-Business
Big Data Technology, Services Market Growing to $48.6Bn in 2019- IDC
The Big Data market continues to exhibit strong momentum as businesses accelerate their transformation into data-driven companies.
This momentum is driving strong growth in big data-related infrastructure, software, and services.
A new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC ) sees the big data technology and services market growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.1% over the 2014-2019 forecast period with annual spending reaching $48.6 billion in 2019. And a new IDC Special Study examines spending on big data solutions in greater detail across 19 vertical industries and eight big data technologies.
“The ever-increasing appetite of businesses to embrace emerging big data-related software and infrastructure technologies while keeping the implementation costs low has led to the creation of a rich ecosystem of new and incumbent suppliers,” said Ashish Nadkarni, program director, Enterprise Servers and Storage and co-author of the report with Dan Vesset, Program Vice President, Business Analytics & Big Data.
“At the same time, the market opportunity is spurring new investments and M&A activity as incumbent suppliers seek to maintain their relevance by developing comprehensive solutions and new go-to-market paths.”
All three major big data submarkets – infrastructure, software, and services – are expected to grow over the next five years. Infrastructure, which consists of computing, networking, storage infrastructure, and other datacenter infrastructure-like security – will grow at a 21.7% CAGR.
Software, which consists of information management, discovery and analytics, and applications software – will grow at a CAGR of 26.2%.
And services, which includes professional and support services for infrastructure and software, will grow at a CAGR of 22.7%. Infrastructure spending will account for roughly one half of all spending throughout the forecast period.
As big data matures, IDC expects its share of the larger Business Analytics market to increase. However, year-over-year growth within the big data market is forecast to gradually slow.
The reduction in overall growth will be largely caused by increased price pressures for infrastructure and higher rates of commercialization of open source software.
The availability and skill level of big data IT and analytics talent will also have a direct impact on the market.
While the business drivers, barriers, and potential benefits from deploying big data initiatives vary from industry to industry, these efforts are primarily focused on delivering a better customer experience, supporting product and service innovation, and optimizing business processes.
Common barriers to adoption include security and privacy concerns, as well as the related challenges of collecting, using, and managing customers’ personal data. A shifting regulatory environment is another area of concern across industries.
“The ability to leverage big data and analytics to develop an integrated view of customer activities and business operations will provide competitive differentiation to companies across industries,” said Jessica Goepfert, program director for IDC’s Global Technology and Industry Research Organization.
“However, in addition to the huge opportunities, big data presents some significant risks and liabilities to organizations. Line of business and IT executives will need to approach these ongoing challenges with awareness, flexibility, adaptability, and responsibility.”
From a vertical industry perspective, the largest industries for big data spending include discrete manufacturing ($2.1 billion in 2014), banking ($1.8 billion in 2014), and process manufacturing ($1.5 billion in 2014).
The industries with the fastest growth rates include securities and investment services (26% CAGR), banking (26% CAGR), and media (25% CAGR).
The IDC study, Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services Forecast, 2015-2019 (IDC #259532), provides a revenue forecast of the big data technology and services market for the 2015-2019 period. The forecast covers infrastructure, software, and services market segments, as well as a regional distribution for the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia/Pacific (including Japan).
The IDC Special Study, Driven by Data, Fueled with Insights: Worldwide Big Data Forecast by Vertical Market, 2014-2019 (IDC # US40544915), examines the current status of big data adoption and investment in the context of different vertical industries, identifying industry drivers and barriers of big data solutions, and providing a vertical forecast by 19 industries for the United States and Worldwide for eight big data technologies. The report also examines potential changes that will shape business and IT strategy in coming years and the business opportunities enabled by big data and advanced analytics.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has launched an investigation into allegations that the confidentiality and integrity of candidates’ personal data may have been compromised by hackers.
The Commission initiated the inquiry following concerns over possible data breaches during examinations.
Preliminary findings indicate that several examination centres may not have implemented adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard candidates’ personal information, as required under data protection regulations.
Although the incident reportedly affected 379, 997 candidates, the NDPC’s investigation is poised to cover a systemic audit of data processing and third parties.
It will be recalled that JAMB recently admitted that a technical error on its platform affected a total of 379,997 candidates in 157 examination centres across Lagos and the South-East.
Further investigation led to the arrest of at least 20 suspects who are currently in the custody of the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force.
Cyber security firm, Kaspersky, has once again warned that sophisticated cybercriminals increasingly target Africa as ransomware and advanced persistent threats (APTs) escalate across the region.
Speaking at the company’s annual Cyber Security Weekend for the Middle East, Turkiye and Africa (META) region, the cybersecurity firm’s Global Research and Analysis Team highlighted growing digital threats affecting African nations.
Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa emerged as hotspots, with Kenya recording one of the highest web threat incident rates at 20.1% in first quarter 2025.
“While ransomware is less prevalent in Africa due to lower levels of digitisation and economic constraints, countries like South Africa and Nigeria are seeing a sharp rise in attacks,” said Sergey Lozhkin, head of META and APAC regions at Kaspersky.
Kaspersky noted a 0.01 percentage point increase in African ransomware cases year-on-year, reaching 0.41%, still below global and Middle Eastern averages, but a troubling sign for the continent’s emerging digital infrastructure.
Experts warned that attackers are refining their tactics, shifting focus to unconventional entry points like IoT devices, smart appliances, and misconfigured hardware.
“As these economies expand digitally, sectors such as manufacturing, finance and government are becoming key targets,” said Lozhkin
The cyber-crime landscape is evolving quickly, fuelled by AI tools and dark web access to large language models, which enable less skilled actors to launch convincing phishing and malware campaigns.
Groups like FunkSec, which uses AI-generated code and a low-cost ransom model, are redefining ransomware operations.
“African organisations face the dual challenge of expanding digital footprints and limited cybersecurity awareness. This makes layered defense strategies, including network segmentation, real-time monitoring and regular staff training, essential,” stated Lozhkin
Kaspersky continues to monitor 25 active APT groups in the META region, including SideWinder and MuddyWater, some of which are known to target African institutions.
To bolster defenses, the firm recommends using tools such as its free Anti-Ransomware Tool for Business and the Kaspersky Next suite for threat visibility and response.
Nigeria recently launched a new joint case team to step up its response to cybercrimes that affect people and businesses at home and abroad.
The ‘Joint Case Team on Cybercrime’ brings together Nigeria’s key justice and security agencies to work as one, making it easier to detect, investigate, and prosecute digital offences.
It is supported by the UK National Crime Agency, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Commonwealth Secretariat, as part of a wider effort to promote international cooperation on cybercrime.
Speaking at the launch in Abuja, Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN, minister of justice and attorney general of the federation described the initiative as “a bold and transformative stride in Nigeria’s justice system.”
He said that although Nigeria has a national legal framework to address cyber offences, laws alone are not enough.
Nigeria is among the countries most affected by cybercrime around the world, with increasing financial losses.
NDPC Probes Suspected Data Breach in Examination Centres
Airtel’s AI Spam Alert Flags 9.6m Spam Attempts
Vitel Wireless Completes Interconnectivity with all Major Telcos in Nigeria
Nigeria Approves $500m for AfDB’s Trust Fund Replenishment over Next 15 Years
Nigeria Among Hotspots as Kaspersky Warns of Rising Ransomware Threat in Africa
E-Business3 days agoNigeria Launches Cybercrime Team with Commonwealth, UK Support
Telecom3 days agoTelecom Subscribers Decline By 43m in One Year
Telecom3 days agoNCC Orders Telcos to Compensate Subscribers for Outages More than 24 Hours
E-Financial3 days agoSERAP Drags CBN to Court over Alleged Failure to Disclose LG Allocations
General News3 days agoHEDA Sues FG, Oil Giants over Alleged Unlawful Oil Licence Transfer
Telecom2 days agoEngr. Ikechukwu Nnamani Receives Two Prestigious @ABoICT Awards
Telecom3 days agoIHS Nigeria, NSCDC Partner to Protect Telecoms Infrastructure
E-Financial2 days agoEFCC Recovers over N20Bn Stolen by Hackers from 6 Banks in Nigeria