Gartner Says Worldwide Security Software Revenue Grew 18.6 Per Cent in 2008

Appliance-Based Products Saw Fastest Growth

Egham, UK, June 22, 2009 — Worldwide security software market revenue totalled $13.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 18.6 per cent from 2007 revenue of $11.3 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. Analysts said there was an increasing demand for appliance-based products, particularly within certain segments such as, e-mail security and secure web gateway markets.

“In 2008, the security market did not show any noticeable impact from the economic downturn,” said Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner. “A double-digit growth in a challenging economic climate shows that security remains a key priority for CIOs and IT security leaders.”

Globally, data security and privacy, along with the need to protect IT infrastructure from the ever increasing sophisticated and targeted attacks, are among the key drivers fuelling the growth of IT security software spending. For organisations operating in North America and Western Europe, compliance was among the major drivers.

The combined top five vendors’ market share is gradually falling in favour of smaller players, a sign that security remains a dynamic market where smaller players, new entrants and specialist vendors provide an effective challenge to the established leaders.

Symantec continued to be the market leader, as it accounted for 22 per cent of worldwide security software in 2008 (see Table 1). However, the company’s market share was down from 2007 when it accounted for 24.4 per cent of the market. McAfee experienced the strongest growth rate among the top five vendors, as its revenue increased 20.5 per cent in 2008.

Table 1
Worldwide: Security Software Vendor Revenue, 2008 (Millions of US Dollars)

Company	2008 Revenue	2008 Market Share (%)	2007 Revenue	2007 Market Share (%)	2008-2007 Growth (%)
Symantec	2,968.7	22.0	2,768.5	24.4	7.2
McAfee	1,475.7	10.9	1,225.2	10.8	20.5
Trend Micro	938.5	7.0	809.2	7.1	16.0
IBM	693.0	5.1	607.9	5.4	14.0
EMC	537.6	4.0	494.9	4.4	8.6
Others	6,866.0	50.9	5,456.0	48.0	25.9
Total	13,479.7	100.0	11,361.3	100.0	18.6

All software segment types, including appliances
Source: Gartner (June 2009)

The segments in the appliance-based products that recorded the fastest growth in 2008 were, security information and event management (SIEM), e-mail security boundary, and secure web gateway appliance with 50 per cent, 37.7 per cent and 29.9 per cent increases respectively.

Web access management (WAM) and endpoint protection platform (EPP) were the slowest performing segments. Web access management (WAM) technologies have reached maturity and few vendors experienced strong customer-base growth, with the majority experiencing mid-to-low single digit growth. The low growth of the EPP suite was impacted by the mature and slow growing antivirus component, which is the largest product component in terms of revenue.

From a region perspective, Eastern Europe was the fastest region with 35 per cent growth in 2008. The growth in the region was significantly influenced by the strengthening of the euro against the dollar. It was followed by Middle East and Africa, Latin America and Asia/Pacific regions which saw growth increasing of around 30 per cent. “Although North America and Western Europe continued to lead the market with market shares of 46.4 per cent and 29.9 per cent respectively, their share of the market has been decreasing in the last few years in favour of emerging regions.

“During times of economic uncertainty and budget restrictions, IT security leaders increasingly need to show business value and cost-effectiveness for security measures, and this has impacted and slowed sales cycles,” concluded Mr Contu. “However, new product delivery methods, such as software as a service (SaaS) and host based offerings, and expected increasing interest from the small and midsize business (SMB) sector will sustain growth in the market in 2009.”

In 2009, Gartner predicts that the security software market will show signs of slowdown but will continue to grow at around 9 per cent.

Note to editors:
In the reporting of 2008 security software market, Gartner updated the market segmentation in order to keep up with product offering and purchasing trends changes and technology evolution. As a result end point security platform and consumer security segments replace enterprise and consumer security antivirus and secure web Gateway replaces URL filtering.

Additional detail is available in the Gartner report “Market Share: Security Market, Worldwide 2008." The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=1006715&subref=simplesearch.

Gartner analysts will further discuss security trends at Gartner's Information Summits held in Washington D.C.(June 28 – July 1), Sydney (September 15-16) and London (September 21-22). These Summits provide a comprehensive view of the entire security market and Gartner analysts, industry experts and IT security practitioners will deliver unbiased, realistic analysis of the current state of information security, as well as an independent vision of how things will evolve over the long term. For complete details on these events, please visit:

Gartner Information Security Summit —Washington D.C.: www.gartner.com/us/itsecurity
Gartner Information Security Summit —Sydney: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=787515
Gartner Information Security Summit —London: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=787512

Members of the media can register for the Summits by contacting:
Washington D.C.: Christy Pettey at christy.pettey@gartner.com
Sydney: Susan Moore at susan.mooore@gartner.com
London: Holly Stevens at holly.stevens@gartner.com

 

Contacts:


Christy Pettey
Gartner
+1 408 468 8312
christy.pettey@gartner.com

Holly Stevens
Gartner
+44 0 1784 267412
holly.stevens@gartner.com


About Gartner:
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is the indispensable partner to 60,000 clients in 10,000 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,000 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants in 80 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.