Security spend continues unabated

By Nicola Mawson for Gartner

Johannesburg, 23 Jun 2009

Local security spending is expected to hold up, despite the global recession, says research group Gartner.

Spending on security in SA is expected to grow 18% this year in euro terms, says Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner. He expects to see a healthy level of investment and growth in this sector in SA. Globally, the market is predicted to grow at 9%.

Contu adds spending is expected in security software, e-mail, Web-based security and in access management, among other aspects. Overall, the security market will perform better than most other software markets. “When you have a crisis, the last thing you want is to cut down on security.”

Generally, spending on security in emerging countries lags that of spending in developed countries such as Western Europe and the US, Contu says. While investment is linked to the level of risk, developed economies tend to have more regulations, which drive the need for security software, he explains.

In addition, emerging economies are characterised by smaller businesses, which cannot afford the level of security that larger companies in developed markets have.

Global spend

Worldwide security software market revenue reached $13.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 18.6% from the previous year's $11.3 billion. This was off the back of an increased demand for appliance-based products, especially within segments such as e-mail security and secure Web gateway markets.

Last year, the security market did not show any noticeable impact from the economic downturn, says Contu. The double-digit growth, despite the challenging economic climate, shows security remains a key priority for CIOs and IT security leaders, he notes.

From a region perspective, Eastern Europe was the fastest growing region, with 35% growth last year. Middle East and Africa, Latin America and the Asia/Pacific regions, which saw growth of around 30%, followed it. Although North America and Western Europe continued to lead with market shares of 46.4% and 29.9% respectively, their share of the market has been decreasing in the last few years in favour of emerging regions.

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.

However, the combined top five vendors' market share is gradually falling in favour of smaller players, which Contu says is 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 remained as market leader, accounting for 22% of worldwide security software in 2008. However, the company has lost market share since 2007, when it accounted for 24.4% of the market. McAfee saw the strongest growth rate among the top five vendors, as its revenue increased 20.5% last year.

Web access management and endpoint protection platform were the slowest performing segments.