ID Crypt has measured the market size of the UK’s digital identity theft protection market since 2018, based on annual revenue, before analysing the changing number of individual businesses operating in the sector in order to forecast what the average turnover per business will be by the end of 2023.
The data shows that in 2021, pandemic pressures saw the digital ID theft protection market’s annual revenue slump to £331.2 million.
In 2022, however, the market showed good signs of recovery by increasing revenue to £324.6 million, and ID Crypt can now reveal that, by the end of 2023, revenue is expected to rise again to £331.9 million.
While this post-pandemic recovery is promising, market revenue is yet to reach its pre-pandemic highs when, in 2018, revenue totalled £360.5 million.
It’s also interesting to note that in 2018, there were an estimated 134 businesses working in the UK market. Based on overall market revenue, this means each business was generating an estimated average of £2.7 million.
By the time market revenue slumped to £311.2 million in 2021, the number of operating businesses had increased to 143, which meant each firm was generating revenue of just £2.18 million.
The following year saw the number of businesses climb by 1.4% and revenue per company increase by 2.9% to £2.24 million thanks to an overall market revenue hike of around £13 million.
Now, it is forecast that by the end of 2023, the number of businesses will have increased by 4.8% to 152. Therefore, despite market revenue expected to increase by more than £7 million on the year, average revenue per company is set to fall by -2.5% to £2.18 million.
CEO and Founder of ID Crypt Global, Lauren Wilson-Smith, commented: “Our digital identities are becoming more important by the day, which means the value of the data held within them is becoming more valuable. As such, more businesses are entering the market to try and take a slice of the available profits, but in doing so, they have actually reduced revenue per business.
This is what happens when the market population increases at a faster rate than market revenue, but it shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a bad thing. It proves digital ID protection is a hot topic and a market that is set to continuing growing over the coming years.
This means that there are going to be plenty of opportunities for the best companies to rise to the top and earn the revenue share they truly deserve, while the businesses who are failing to provide an adequate product or service will fall by the wayside. It is, as Darwin would say, survival of the fittest. And this consolidation will lead to genuine market evolution with only the best businesses left standing.”