Symantec led the $29bn security software market in 2015

Symantec led the global security software market in 2015, which grew 3.7% from the prior year to reach US$22.1 billion ($29.1 billion), research from Gartner indicates.

Symantec ended 2015 with a market share of 15.2%, generating revenue of US$3.35 billion. Intel followed with a 7.9% share and revenue of US$1.75 billion, followed by IBM with a 6.6% share and revenue of US$4.5 billion.

Trend Micro and EMC rounded out the top five, with market shares of 4.5% and 3.4% and revenue of US$990 million and US$756 million respectively.

But the top five vendors' share of the global security software market declined 3.1 percentage points to 37.6%.

Each of the top five barring IBM also reported revenue declines over the prior year, with the vendors reporting a collective decrease of 4.2%. Symantec reported the steepest decline of 6.2%.

"The below-market growth seen by these large vendors with complex product portfolios is in contrast to the market growth and disruption being introduced by smaller, more specialised security software vendors," Gartner Principal Research Analyst Sid Deshpande commented.

IBM avoided the squeeze faced by the other incumbents due to its strong performance in the security information and event management (SIEM) segment, which was the fastest-growing category in 2015 with 15.8% growth.

By contrast, consumer security software showed the steepest decline at 5.9%, which was a big factor behind Symantec's weaker performance. The company has now suffered its third consecutive year of shrinking revenue.

Image courtesy of Martin McKeay under CC