As Cloud Service Adoption Matures, Expectations Rise

Has the public cloud computing services market matured to the point of saturation? The most current market research data seems to indicate that growth may be slowing across the globe. Regardless, demand is not focused on technology, instead, it's all about the anticipated business outcomes.

While line of business (LoB) leaders typically drive demand for cloud service adoption, it's the enterprise CTO and CIO that must manage the cloud computing and storage procurement process. Meanwhile, numerous vendors and service providers are now competing for new cloud customers.

Public Cloud Market Development

The worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 17 percent in 2020 to total $266.4 billion -- that's up from $227.8 billion in 2019, according to the latest market study by Gartner.

"At this point, cloud adoption is mainstream," said Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner. "The expectations of the outcomes associated with cloud investments, therefore, are also higher."

The adoption of next-generation solutions is almost always ‘cloud-enhanced’ solutions, meaning they build on the strengths of a cloud platform to deliver anticipated digital transformation capabilities.

Software as a service (SaaS) will remain the largest market segment, which is forecast to grow to $116 billion next year due to the scalability of subscription-based software.

The second-largest market segment is cloud system infrastructure services, or infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which will reach $50 billion in 2020.

IaaS is forecast to grow 24 percent year-over-year, which is the highest growth rate across all market segments. This growth is attributed to supporting the demands of modern application development and the associated workloads.

Various forms of cloud computing are among the top three areas where most global CIOs will increase their investment next year, according to Gartner.

As organizations increase their reliance on cloud technologies, IT teams will embrace cloud-built apps and relocate existing digital assets. Building, implementing and maturing cloud strategies will continue to be a top priority.

Outlook for Public Cloud Applications Growth

"The cloud managed service landscape is becoming increasingly sophisticated and competitive. In fact, by 2022, up to 60 percent of organizations will use an external service provider’s cloud managed service offering, which is double the percentage of organizations from 2018," said Mr. Nag.

Cloud-native capabilities, application services, multicloud and hybrid cloud comprise a diverse and complex cloud ecosystem that will be important differentiators for technology product managers.

According to the Gartner assessment, demand for strategic cloud service outcomes signals an organizational shift toward digital business outcomes. However, the key challenge will be sourcing the skilled and experienced talent that can translate cloud service technology into tangible business benefits.

How Industry 4.0 Will Fuel 5G Global Revenue Growth

New research has focused on the economic value of fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication technology, the Internet of Things (IoT), and how they enable the development of new vertical industry applications.

5G will dramatically gain importance in providing wireless connectivity to industrial environments, especially in the context of Industry 4.0 and the automation of production processes and monitoring of machine conditions.

5G Infrastructure Market Development

According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, by 2026 there will be 5.3 million 5G connections on the factory floor which will generate revenue of more than $184 million -- that's a CAGR of 623 percent between 2021 and 2026.

"As a technology, 5G will be a perfect fit to provide wireless connectivity on the factory floor, since it enables, for example, establishing a massive wireless sensor network or implementing Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications for predictive maintenance and product monitoring," said Leo Gergs, research analyst at ABI Research.

5G offers immense operational benefits and productivity enhancements to the implementing manufacturer. Furthermore, the technology opens up new production opportunities by enabling artificial intelligence (AI) applications to be integrated into manufacturing processes.

Early 5G trial deployment projects at companies such as Schneider Electric in France and Germany’s Osram, and Mercedes hint that bringing 5G connectivity to the factory floor will decrease maintenance costs by 30 percent and increase overall equipment efficiency by 7 percent.

While there are many use cases and areas of application for 5G in industrial manufacturing, targeting the enterprise vertical will fundamentally change the value chain associated with 5G.

However, a much closer collaboration between network operators, infrastructure vendors, and manufacturers will be required.

According to the ABI assessment, targeting enterprise verticals is vitally important for telecom service providers and the successful deployment of 5G infrastructure and associated product offerings.

A recent Return on Investment (ROI) study has shown that 5G infrastructure will take approximately 14 to 15 years to break even if it remains solely in the consumer market, versus 10 years if enterprise business models were developed with effective target marketing.

Outlook for 5G Innovation and Revenue Growth

"It is, therefore, highly important for network operators and infrastructure vendors to develop new business strategies taking into manufacturers’ requirements. Centrally, this should include moving away from selling connectivity as such and develop attractive pricing models for additional network capabilities," concludes Gergs.

Industry 4.0 is a subset of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). Did you know that 1TB of production data is created daily by the average factory, but less than 1 percent is analyzed?

Industry 4.0 innovations make use of that raw data to uncover insights, predict failures, prescribe fixes and optimize assets -- significantly reducing costs and improving factory productivity.

Blockchain will Transform Food Production & Distribution

While blockchain applications are still evolving across the globe, several use cases across asset tracking, financial services and digital identity are already in production and offer valuable improvements. Joining the list of compelling blockchain use cases: the food industry.

More than 30 percent of the food produced worldwide is lost or wasted before it is consumed. With the global population expected to grow to 9.8 billion by 2050, improving the food supply chain efficiency will greatly reduce food scarcity and advance the attainment of sustainability goals.

Introducing blockchain to the food industry can deliver many benefits. All are linked to the visibility it gives manufacturers, retailers and producers able to view their upstream and downstream activities, location and status of products, with certifications and insights for the entire value chain.

Blockchain Market Development

According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, blockchain will enable $31 billion in food fraud savings globally by 2024 by immutably tracking food across the supply chain. Substantial savings in food fraud will be realized from 2021 and compliance costs will be reduced by 30 percent by 2024.

The new research revealed that blockchain, used with the internet of things (IoT) sensors and trackers, will reduce retailers’ costs by streamlining supply chains; offering simpler regulatory compliance and efficient food recall process.

According to the Juniper assessment, building on their respective strengths, blockchain and the IoT can help to transform the food industry. Juniper analysts recommend that blockchain vendors and service providers seek IoT partnerships to appeal to stakeholders across the food production market.

While IoT solutions link the physical and digital worlds primarily via location tracking sensors and temperature and humidity monitoring, blockchain provides an immutable platform where this data can be stored and accessed by every player in the process.

The research found that the IoT and blockchain will add significant value to players involved in the supply chain, from farmers to retailers and consumers.

By replacing lengthy procedures with automated smart contracts, blockchain and the IoT bring cost reductions, risk mitigation and transparency to supply chains.

Outlook for Blockchain and IoT Innovation

The research also found that leading players in the food provenance space are leveraging their robust blockchain and IoT solutions. This includes IBM’s Food Trust and Watson platforms, SAP’s Track and Trace and Leonardo platforms, as well as Oracle’s Track and Trace, and Internet of Things solutions.

"Today, transparency and efficiency in the food supply chain are limited by opaque data forcing each company to rely on intermediaries and paper-based records. Blockchain and the IoT provide an immutable, shared platform for all actors in the supply chain to track and trace assets; saving time, resources and reducing fraud," said Dr Morgane Kimmich, research analyst at Juniper Research.

Smart Cybersecurity Solutions Powered by AI and ML

Now that data breaches are more common, Digital Trust is a top priority for C-level leaders that build and maintain the IT infrastructure for digital transformation. Besides, for most organizations, losing digital trust can have a significant impact on brand reputation and the bottom line.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have been adopted for their automation benefits, from predictive outcomes to advanced data analytics. AI-based cybersecurity can augment the capabilities of IT staff and help organizations deflect cyber threats, according to the latest market study by Frost & Sullivan.

AI and ML Market Development

Particularly, AI and ML have been used widely in cybersecurity industries, by both hacking and security communities, making the security landscape even more sophisticated. Many organizations, regardless of size, are now facing greater challenges in day-to-day IT security operations.

Many of them indicate that the cost of threat management, particularly threat detection and response, is too high. Meanwhile, AI-driven attacks have increased in number and frequency, requiring security professionals to have more advanced, smart and automated technologies to combat these automated attacks.

With digital transformation a priority for a majority of enterprises today, there is a proliferation of connected devices, offering customers convenience, efficient services and better experiences. However, this connectivity also increases the potential risk of cyberattacks for enterprises and users.

Cybercriminals are also using more sophisticated methods to attack organizations. These include polymorphic malware, AI and other automated techniques. Enterprises are struggling with a lack of trained staff and cybersecurity expertise to counter the more sophisticated attacks.

These increasing challenges in security operations suggest the need for a smarter, more adaptable, automated and predictive security strategy. AI and ML are increasingly being developed by security companies to strengthen their competitiveness using their own AI or ML algorithms to empower security products and augment the capabilities of existing IT and cybersecurity staff in enterprises.

AI and ML are being incorporated into all stages of cybersecurity to enable enterprises to adopt a smarter, more proactive and automated approach toward cyber defense, including threat prevention or protection, threat detection or hunting, and threat response to predictive security strategies.

While technology startups have been the most proactive in introducing multiple AI-enabled security offerings into the market, larger IT vendors have also incorporated AI and ML into their existing enterprise security solutions.

Outlook for AI and ML Applications Growth

"With cybersecurity solutions powered by AI capabilities, vendors can better support enterprises and their cybersecurity teams with less time and manpower investment and higher efficiency to identify the cybersecurity gaps," said Amy Lin, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

Key AI and ML market trends for cybersecurity include:

• Embracing and incorporating AI-enabled capabilities into exiting solutions to intensify the competitive advantage.
• Supporting a more holistic cybersecurity framework from detection to response and further prediction.
• Assisting cybersecurity expert teams on operations with lower false-positive rates and enhancing their ability to react.

Global Outlook for Telecommunications Services Growth

Traditional telecom service providers and mobile network operators have many challenges that impact their ability to generate new growth. That said, the situation is more problematic for those companies that had also invested in legacy pay-TV business models. Looking ahead, the next few years are likely to be confounding.

Worldwide spending on telecom services and pay-TV services will reach $1,633 billion in 2019, and that's an increase of 0.8 percent year-on-year, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC).

Furthermore, IDC forecasts that those same services will reach $1,647 billion in 2020, representing an increase of just 0.9 percent. Given that assessment, the senior executives that lead these companies will seek ways to change the status quo and transform their business model.

Telecommunications Market Development

Mobile communications remain the largest segment of the market, accounting for 52.8 percent of the total in 2019. The mobile market is set to post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.3 percent over the 2019-2023 period.

That modest growth will be driven by the increase in mobile data usage and machine to machine (M2M) applications, which is offsetting the ongoing declines in spending on mobile voice and messaging services.

Fixed data service spending represents 21.7 percent of the total market in 2019, with an expected CAGR of 3.3 percent, driven by the need for higher bandwidth services.

Spending on fixed voice services will post a CAGR of negative 4.8 percent over the forecast period and will represent only 8.5 percent of the total market by 2023. However, rapidly declining TDM voice revenues are not being offset by the increase in IP voice.

On a geographical basis, the Americas was the largest services market, with revenues of $630 billion in 2019, driven by the large North American sector.

Asia Pacific was the second largest region, followed by Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).

The markets with the fastest year-on-year growth in 2019 were EMEA, driven mainly by emerging markets, followed by the Americas.

The introduction of 5G, the latest technology to reach the global telecommunications market, has recently begun to make an impact. The promise of improved wireless network architectures, data transmission speeds, and enhanced services should help to remake the mobile service landscape.

This transition to 5G technology has already been launched in the more advanced markets -- such as Korea, the United States., UK, Germany, and China. According to the latest IDC forecast, the total number of mobile 5G subscriptions will surpass one billion by 2023.

Outlook for Telecom Service Revenue Growth

"By introducing extremely high speeds and ultra-reliable low latency, 5G will create the infrastructural foundation for a smarter and even more connected world," said Kresimir Alic, research director at IDC. "It will also generate new opportunities for telecom services operators."

More than ever before, these companies will be expected to create, innovate, and educate -- essentially becoming leaders of a global digital revolution. But challenges remain for the CEOs that must lead their organizations through the next wave of unanticipated market disruptions.

They need the vision of a savvy CMO that can drive growth. They'll also want CIOs and CTOs that have the foresight to anticipate the need to reduce operational costs by adopting more open-source hardware and software that can enable improved financial performance -- in particular, forward-looking revenue and profit projections.

How Digital Commerce Spending will Reach $18.7 Trillion

The Global Networked Economy is fueled by the growing adoption and application of digital commerce innovations. In many instances, digital commerce enables wholesale supplier or retailer customers to purchase goods and services through an interactive and self-service experience.

It includes the people, processes and technologies to execute the offering of development content, analytics, promotion, pricing, customer acquisition and retention, and customer experience at all touchpoints throughout the customer buying journey. That's one view of the evolving eCommerce landscape.

Digital Commerce Market Development

Industry analysts also segment the overall digital commerce market into payments, banking and gambling as its principal segments, which are then further broken down into their respective sub-segments.

It's important to appreciate that these segments are not mutually exclusive and necessarily intersect with one other to varying extents. Boundaries between the segments are not always binary in the reality of the global marketplace and the associated services being delivered.

According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, global spending on digital commerce will reach $18.7 trillion by 2024 -- that's up from $11.2 trillion in 2019; an increase of 66 percent over the 5-year forecast period.

The new study found the largest single digital commerce sector is the remote purchase of physical goods, which will have driven just under 27 percent of all digital commerce spend by the end of 2019.

The eCommerce market is being accelerated by digital-native merchants and a renewed focus from traditional brick and mortar retailers, who are offering differentiated omnichannel experiences in order to secure future revenue streams.

Juniper analysis highlighted the user experience via digital channels as the crucial next battleground for retailers. Reduced friction in the checkout process, despite increased security requirements, is an essential ingredient for future success.

The data that Juniper gathered found that digital money transfer is one of the main drivers for increasing digital commerce spend -- forecast to grow by 85 percent over the next 5 years.

Juniper also identified domestic money transfer as a critical element, with increased activity in emerging markets a key contributor to the overall market value.

"Domestic money transfer is being heavily disrupted, with mobile-first services displacing the traditional role of cash in emerging economies. Partnerships with international merchants and wallets will enable these markets to participate in eCommerce on a scale previously thought impossible," said Nick Maynard, lead analyst at Juniper Research.

Outlook for Digital Commerce Applications Growth

The research also found that payments from IoT devices, primarily in the smart home and via connected vehicles, will reach over 32 billion transactions by 2024. This compares with just under 1.8 billion transactions in 2019, as these new channels achieve customer recognition and acceptance.

However, the research also predicted that these new channels will not represent new consumer spend; they will largely be driven by migration from traditional payment card spend or will cannibalize other digital channels.

How 5G Will Generate $6.2 Trillion in Service Revenues

Telecom service providers across the globe have invested significantly in updating their network infrastructure to take advantage of the operational efficiencies enabled by each new generation of wireless communications technology. The next wave of investment has already begun.

According to the latest global market study by ABI Research, fifth-generation (5G) wireless is expected to have 12 million connections worldwide by the end of 2019. The number of 5G connections will then grow rapidly to 205 million worldwide at the end of 2020.

5G Infrastructure Market Development

The new generation is expected to grow much faster than anticipated, and it's believed that 5G connections will overtake 4G connections in 2025. ABI Research expects approximately 3 billion 5G connections in 2025 with 4G declining from its current 3.9 billion to 2.2 billion in the same year.

"Despite the challenges faced by early adopters and the relatively high prices of 5G-capable smartphones in 2019, ABI Research expects 5G to reach the mass market mid-2020, by which time China will start to dominate in terms of connections, and as a result, market interest and technology expertise," said Dimitris Mavrakis, research director at ABI Research.

The infrastructure value chain is maturing, handset vendors are manufacturing mid-tier 5G handsets, and mobile consumers are now discovering higher speeds, better user experiences, and new services -- including cloud gaming and augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications.

According to the ABI assessment, all of these market developments will contribute to the explosion of consumer 5G service offerings within 2020.

However, China will dominate 5G deployment after all mobile service providers launch in November 2019 -- having deployed 5G network infrastructure in 50 cities before launching.

Chinese mobile network operators are now forecast to have 143 million subscribers at the end of 2020, which will represent an overwhelming 70 percent of total connections worldwide.

In contrast, U.S. mobile network operators will reach approximately 28 million during the same year. Moreover, in 2025, China is expected to have 1.1 billion 5G subscribers and the United States, 318 million subscribers.

Outlook for 5G Infrastructure and Revenue Growth 

Globally, ABI Research expects mobile service providers to invest nearly $1.2 trillion in the next 5 years to build out their networks. That investment will likely generate nearly $6.2 trillion in service revenues from the mobile consumer communications market.

"Although most mobile 5G subscribers will be in China, mobile service provider revenues will still be higher in the United States in 2025, mainly driven by higher service subscription prices," Mavrakis concludes.

2019 Total Worldwide IT Spending will Reach $3.7 Trillion

Information Technology (IT) infrastructure investment can fluctuate based upon the annual shifts and changes in demand. Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.7 trillion in 2019 -- that's an increase of just 0.4 percent over 2018, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner.

That said, this has been the lowest IT growth forecast in 2019. However, Gartner believes that global IT spending will likely rebound in 2020 with forecast growth of 3.7 percent, primarily due to enterprise software spending.

Information Technology Market Development

"The slowdown in IT spending in 2019 is not expected to stretch as far into 2020 despite concerns over a recession and companies cutting back on discretionary IT spending," said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner.

Today’s complex geopolitical environment has pushed regulatory compliance to the top of organizations’ priority list. Overall spending on security increased by 10.5 percent in 2019, with cloud security projected to grow 41.2 percent over the next five years.

"This is not just about keeping the ‘bad guys’ out," said Mr. Lovelock. "It is also about the expanding need to be compliant with tariffs and trade policy, intellectual property rights, and even with the multiple and sometimes overlapping privacy laws."

Despite the ongoing tariff war, U.S. IT spending is forecast to grow 3.5 percent in 2019, but IT spending in China is expected to grow only 0.1 percent. Tariffs have not had an effect on IT spending.

But if tariffs extend to devices like PCs and mobile phones, then we will likely see manufacturers switch supply routes to minimize costs and have their technology made outside of China.

The device market will see the sharpest spending decline among all segments in 2019, down 5.3 percent from $713 billion in 2018. However, the market is expected to see a modest growth of 1.2 percent in 2020.

"Similar to how consumers have reached a threshold for upgrading to new technology and applications, technology general managers and product managers should invest only in the next generation of products that will push them closer to becoming a true technology company," said Mr.Lovelock.

IT spending growth is being driven by the rest of the world catching up on cloud spending. The U.S. is leading cloud services adoption and accounts for over half of global spending on cloud computing.

In some cases, countries that Gartner tracks lag one to seven years in cloud adoption rates. For perspective, the country directly behind the U.S. on cloud spending is the United Kingdom, which only spends 8 percent on public cloud services.

An interesting outlier is China, which has the highest growth of cloud spending out of all countries. While China is closing the spending gap, it still will not reach U.S. levels by 2023.

Outlook for Worldwide IT Spending Growth

Gartner predicts that organizations with a high percentage of IT spending dedicated to the cloud will become the recognized digital leaders in the future. "Most companies are caught trying to either cut costs or invest for growth, but the top-performing enterprises are doing both,"  said Mr. Lovelock.

A challenge facing many leaders across industries is learning how an established organization can operate as both a traditional company and an emerging digital business at the same time. According to the Gartner assessment, this ongoing scenario will likely drive future IT spending on new products and services.

Digital Transformation Investment will Reach $2.3 Trillion

Digital transformation is a strategic priority for many organizations. It involves managing the legacy IT environment while building a new infrastructure to enable digital growth. Savvy CIOs and CTOs will adopt intelligent platforms that enhance their internal business processes and improve external stakeholder engagement.

That's why enterprise investment in the technologies and services that enable digital transformation is forecast to reach $2.3 trillion in 2023, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC).

Digital Transformation (DX) spending is expected to steadily expand throughout the 2019-2023 forecast period, achieving a five-year compound annual growth rate of 17.1 percent.

Digital Transformation Market Development

"We are approaching an important milestone in DX investment with our forecast showing the DX share of total worldwide technology investment hitting 53 percent in 2023," said Craig Simpson, research manager at IDC. "This will be the first time DX technology spending has represented the majority share of total worldwide information and communications technology (ICT) investment."

Worldwide DX technology investments will total more than $7.4 trillion over the next four years. The financial services sector will see the fastest overall growth with the banking, insurance, security and investment services industries each delivering CAGRs of more than 19 percent over the forecast period.

The distribution and services sector -- which includes industries like retail and professional services -- will also outpace the overall market with an 18 percent CAGR while public sector spending growth will match the overall market at 17.1 percent.

Discrete and process manufacturing will deliver the largest DX spending amounts throughout the forecast, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the worldwide total. The leading DX use cases -- discretely funded efforts that support a program objective -- in these industries are autonomic operations, robotic manufacturing, and root cause.

Retail will be the third-largest industry for DX spending with omnichannel commerce platforms and omnichannel order orchestration and fulfillment of the leading DX use cases. Professional services and transportation will be close behind retail in terms of overall DX spending.

The top DX use cases for these two industries are intelligent building energy management and freight management, respectively.

Of the 219 DX use cases identified by IDC, three will see the largest investment amounts throughout the forecast. Autonomic operations will be the largest use case in 2019 but will be overtaken by robotic manufacturing, which will more than double in size by 2023.

The third-largest use case will be freight management, followed by root cause, self-healing assets and automated maintenance, and 360-degree customer and client management.

The use cases that will see the fastest spending growth will be virtualized labs (109.5 percent CAGR), digital visualization (49.9 percent CAGR) and mining operations assistance (41.6 percent CAGR).

Outlook for Geographic Growth of DX Applications

The United States will be the largest geographic market for DX spending, delivering roughly one-third of the worldwide total throughout the forecast. The U.S. industries that will lead the way are discrete manufacturing, professional services, transportation, and process manufacturing.

Western Europe will be the second-largest geographic market in 2019, followed closely by China, which is forecast to move into the second position by the end of the forecast period. The leading industries in Western Europe will be discrete manufacturing, retail, and professional services.

In China, DX spending will be led by discrete manufacturing and process manufacturing. In all three regions, the top DX spending priorities will be smart manufacturing and digital supply chain optimization.

The Commercial Advantages of Blockchain Technologies

The initial commercial interest in cryptocurrency IT infrastructure was the potential to enable an alternative to government-backed fiat currencies. However, now most of the forward-looking focus is on blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins the new applications.

Although deployments are still very much in the realm of the early adopter, blockchain has proven advantages across several vertical industries: it is safe, decentralized, transparent and can reduce intermediary costs.

Blockchain Use Case Market Development

While many CIOs and CTOs believe that blockchain likely has a way to go before becoming a mainstream technology within their sector, five compelling use cases across asset tracking, financial services and digital identity are already in production.

They offer valuable business process improvements to the pioneering organization that has already deployed a blockchain -- whether in terms of increased efficiency, reduced fees and fraud, or full transparency across the whole network.

According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the total value of B2B cross-border payments immutably stored on a blockchain will exceed $4.4 trillion by 2024 -- that's up from $171 billion in 2019.

Blockchain enables real-time clearing and settlement for B2B transactions, while offering increased transparency and reduced costs. These practical applications can deliver significant other benefits.

The new research revealed that financial institutions will save $7 billion by 2024, due to the automation of ‘Know Your Customer’ checks, allied to the involvement of blockchain in identifying users via self-sovereign identity.

Juniper Research assessed 15 leading blockchain vendors, scoring them on experience in the sector, marketing efforts and customer deployments along with their blockchain solutions. Juniper identified the 5 leading vendors as follows: IBM, Infosys Finacle, Guardtime, R3 and Ripple.

The analyst research scored IBM highly for its diverse blockchain solutions in production, with a strong client base for many vertical industries. Additionally, Infosys Finacle has established itself as a leading blockchain provider for financial institutions, with global partners and popular solutions.

"The implementation of blockchain is part of a wider strategy for financial institutions to digitally transform operations," said Dr Morgane Kimmich, research analyst at Juniper Research. "Blockchain will enable stakeholders to reduce operational costs in a competitive market that is becoming increasingly commoditized."

The research found that Ripple, Visa and IBM are driving blockchain innovation in cross-border payments. Ripple has led the market since 2012, capitalizing on its early mover advantage to grow to over 200 financial institution partners in 2019.

Outlook for Blockchain Applications Innovation

However, Ripple is facing increased competition from Visa B2B Connect and IBM Blockchain World Wire, which have already grown their presence in 60 countries and have high-profile partners in the financial services ecosystem.

Moreover, the Juniper analyst anticipates that both companies will continue to exploit their global presence, trusted brand names and established business partner networks to scale their solutions. These market leaders are experienced in market development, moving new product and service offerings beyond the early adopter segment. More deployment growth is sure to follow their lead.