20 June 2008

Worldwide Security Software Market Keeps Growing

John Sterlicchi

The global security software market grew to $10.4 billion in 2007, a rise of 19.8 percent from the 2006 level of $8.7 billion, Gartner said.

Symantec dominated the market with more than 26 percent market share and $2.77 billion in revenue followed by McAfee with $1.23 billion in revenue, up 14.2 percent from a year ago.

Rounding out the top three, Trend Micro garnered $810 million in revenue, an increase of 15.4 percent.

EMC, sixth on the list, more than tripled its revenue year-on-year, 240.5 percent, ($415 million), as it saw its performance primarily influenced as a result of acquisitions while IBM, fourth on the list, experienced explosive growth with 30.7 percent increase and $608 million in revenue.

CA, the fifth highest revenue producer, earned $419 million last year but was the only company whose income dropped, 2.8 percent, from the previous year.

Gartner pointed out that compliance, data leakage and privacy issues, along with the need to tackle the fast evolving and sophisticated threat environment, are some of the drivers fueling the growth of security spending.

Gartner analyst Ruggero Contu said the segments that bolstered security software growth were email security boundary appliance and security information and event management (SIEM) with 45.4 percent and 32.1 percent increases in 2007 respectively.

“Compliance is the primary driver for the adoption of SIEM tools, at the same time they are also adopted to tackle the increasing threats from targeted attacks and fraud,” Contu said. “In addition, the liability that spam and malware have on corporate systems is among the key issues driving spending on email security boundary tools.”

Enterprise antivirus and web access management were the slowest performing segments, Gartner said.

The market research firm stated Microsoft’s entry into the consumer security protection market will further erode pricing in this segment, which will trickle into the professional market starting with the small office/home office and consequently moving into the SMB market.

Latin America was the fastest region growing at a rate of more than 40 percent last year, followed by the Middle East and Africa and Asia/Pacific, with 35 percent and 27 percent respectively.

North America and Western Europe continued to lead the market with shares of 47.5 percent and 31.7 percent respectively.

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