Global Security Software Market Grew 7.9% In 2012: Gartner

Worldwide security software revenue totalled $19.2 billion in 2012, a 7.9 percent increase from 2011 revenue of $17.7 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner said that the evolution of new threats and working practices, such as bring your own device (BYOD), is driving spending on security.

“The 2012 security market saw a continuation of increasing demand for consumer and enterprise security tools as McAfee’s high growth of 37 percent boosted the overall market’s growth rebound in 2012,” said Ruggero Contu, Research Director at Gartner. “Although overall, the 2012 security market continued to grow, not all regions experienced the high double-digit growth of, for example, Eurasia, which was driven by greenfield projects and buoyant economies. As expected, Western Europe remained the laggard due to economic uncertainties and fragility and also due to the impact of dollar-to-euro conversion.”

While it retained its No. 1 position in the consumer and enterprise security spaces in 2012, Symantec managed only single-digit growth of 2.6 percent to reach $3.75 billion in 2012. Second-placed McAfee showed significant growth of 37 percent in 2012 to reach $1.7 billion. This was driven by a combination of organic growth, acquisitions and the indirect impact of a 2011 revenue write-down following Intel’s acquisition of McAfee. In third place, Trend Micro, which spent much of 2012 accelerating the diversification of its business with cloud and virtualisation platform security and advanced threat protection (ATP) offerings, recorded an overall security revenue decrease of 2.7 percent, with negative growth impacting its consumer and enterprise businesses.

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“Security continues to be a top priority across all technology categories in the SME market. The rise of midmarket demand presents a new challenge for participants in the security space, as SME requirements are different from those of larger enterprises,” said Contu. “Security buyers from SMEs are increasingly considering security as a service as an alternative for deploying security technologies, particularly for areas such as email and Web security, which is leading to more market consolidation and more competitive pricing as established players acquire pure-play cloud-based specialists across the security landscape.”

Spending on security software is also influenced by the evolution of new threats and working practices. For example, as companies increase the mobility of their workforce, this situation raises new security concerns and requirements. Growing demand for remote access requires organisations to safeguard off-premises applications and data, as well as an array of new client devices. In addition, the rapid adoption of virtualisation in the SME market is driving interest in security solutions targeting virtual environments.