contact_statistics

The whole component is this:

export class ContactStatisticsField extends Component {
    static template = "web.ContactStatisticsField";
    static props = { ...standardFieldProps };

    get list() {
        return this.props.record.data[this.props.name] || [];
    }
}

It takes the json value, defaults it to an empty array when unset, and hands it to a template that renders the entries. There is no transformation, no formatting logic and no configuration.

Everything that makes the block useful, which statistics appear and what they say, is decided by the Python that computes the json field. The widget is a renderer and nothing more.

On the contact form this is the block that tells you, at a glance, what this customer or vendor means to the business. Because the content is computed server-side, whoever owns that computation owns what your team sees.

That is the practical point: if the statistics on your contact form are not the ones your sales team actually cares about, the fix is in Python, not in the view. Changing the widget, the options or the layout will not add a number that the server is not sending.

Placing the block on a form:

<field name="contact_statistics" widget="contact_statistics"/>

The field behind it must be a json field whose value is a list. A compute is the usual source:

contact_stats = fields.Json(compute="_compute_contact_stats")

def _compute_contact_stats(self):
    for partner in self:
        partner.contact_stats = [...]  # shape must match the template

No change. Diffing the registration between the 19.0 and 20.0 branches shows the same component, the same supportedTypes of json, and still no options. It appears in the same two places in res_partner_views.xml on both branches.