Big Blue now number 3 in global security software

Global security software revenue totalled US$19.9 billion in 2013, a 4.9% increase from 2012 revenue of $19.0 billion, according to research by Gartner. This lower-than-expected growth was due to commoditisation of key subsegments and the decline in growth for two of the top five vendors.

In Australia, security software spending reached AU$408.1 million in 2013, an increase of 8% over 2012. In New Zealand, security software spending totalled NZ$85 million in 2013, up 11.7% from 2012.

"The market experienced slower, but still healthy, growth in 2013,” said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner. “This slightly tempered growth was partly due to the increased commoditisation of the endpoint security (particularly consumer endpoint software) and secure email gateway subsegments that in 2013 accounted for around 25% of the total security software market.

“Overall, the larger trend that emerged in 2013 was that of the democratisation of security threats, driven by the easy availability of malicious software and infrastructure (via the underground economy) that can be used to launch advanced targeted attacks,” said Contu.

“This ubiquity of security threats has led organisations to realise that traditional security approaches have gaps, thereby leading them to rethink and invest more in security technology.”

The top two vendors remained the same as the previous year (Symantec in first place, McAfee second), but IBM took third place this year, displacing Trend Micro, which dropped to fourth, albeit by a small margin.

The top four vendors now account for 39% of the total security software market. This is the first time in many years that a broad portfolio vendor such as IBM (that is, not a pure-play security vendor) has been able to enter the top three.

Image courtesy IBM.