Security Appliances Market Still Booming

Security Appliance makers are enjoying continued growth both in sales as well as unit volume, market research firm IDC said.

Global factory sales jumped by 9.7 percent in Q1 to $1.9 billion. Shipments increased by 12.9 percent to 511,220 units.

Cisco is leading the market with $346 million revenue, 18.4 percent share and 14.4 percent annual growth. Check Point follows with $238 million in sales and 12.7 percent share. Juniper completes the top 3 with $152 million and 8.1 percent.

"The increasingly complex nature of IT security along with the growing threat landscape has the potential to affect operations and cause significant disruptions and the loss of sensitive data," said Ebenezer Obeng-Nyarkoh, senior research analyst at IDC. "Security products are expanding rapidly into other small, fast-growing geographies where demand is greater than ever."

IDC said that all geographic regions with the exception of Asia Pacific saw double digit growth between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012. Central & Eastern Europe saw the highest demand with 39.3 percent year-over-year increase.

Feature-wise, the Firewall/VPN segment saw the greatest annual revenue growth at 23.3 percent. Firewall/VPN devices now account for 28.3 percent of the overall security appliance market. The Unified Threat Management market represents 28.5 percent of security appliance revenues, followed by standalone VPN with 7.9 percent and content management with 5.3 percent.

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker, June 29, 2012