The identity, authentication, and access (IAA) market is set to grow by 13.4% in revenue in 2021, reaching $28.9 billion, according to Omdia's latest Identity Authentication Access Market Tracker. During 2021, the increasing number of security breaches and attacks has brought into even sharper focus the need for strong IAA technology. Identity has never been more important for cybersecurity than now. In this sense, COVID-19 merely turbocharged a tendency that had been underway for several years, i.e., identity adopting a central role in this market and being invoked in all the other areas, including infrastructure and data security.

In 2021, authentication continues to be the largest segment of the IAA market, representing $9.4 billion (or 32.6% of the total). In 2025, authentication revenue is projected to reach $16.6 billion (with a CAGR of 15.1%). In 2021, the combined field of on-premises IAM and cloud-based identity-as-a-service (IDaaS) is projected to be the second largest segment, with revenue of $9.3 billion. Omdia believes that this segment is driven by increased demand for cloud-based solutions such as IDaaS. Meanwhile, identity governance and administration (IGA) and privileged access management (PAM) are projected to account for $5.8 billion and $2.4 billion, respectively, in 2021. Internet of Things (IoT) identity was the smallest segment in 2021, with revenue of $1.9 billion (or 6.6% of the total). However, the IoT identity segment is projected to have the highest growth during the forecast period, increasing to $4.7 billion by 2025 (with a CAGR of 24.3%).

2021: The Year of Mergers, Acquisitions, and New Entrants
The following section highlights some of the major announcements in the IAA space in 2021:

As can be seen from this section, 2021 has seen a reasonable amount of market activity in the form of mergers, acquisitions, and vendors entering new segments of the markets. Omdia believes this trend will continue in 2022, as vendors fight for increased market share in this growing market.

Conclusions
In summary, the IAA market has a bright future due to increased demand as a result of remote working, an increase in mergers and acquisitions activity, and large players entering new segments of the market. Growth has been driven by the pandemic, in that the sharp increase in fraud attacks and security breaches has driven demand for products and solutions in this segment of cybersecurity. The IAA sector is projected to show good growth during the next five years, reaching $53.4 billion in 2025 (with a CAGR of 16.7%).