Security Software Market Jumped Worldwide in 2014: Gartner

Global revenues for the security software market grew more than five percent in 2014 to a total of $21.4 billion, according to industry analyst firm Gartner.

Growth was highest in the security information and event management (SIEM) and secure web gateway (SWG) market sectors, as well as the identity governance and administration (IGA) and enterprise content-aware data loss prevention (DLP) sectors. Growth was slowest in the areas of consumer security software and endpoint protection platforms, Gartner found.

“Overall market growth was up slightly in 2014 to 5.3 percent from 4.9 percent in 2013,” said Sid Deshpande, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a statement. “Even though the SWG segment experienced single-digit growth in 2014, cloud-based and hybrid SWG deployments are becoming increasingly popular. As organizations’ corporate data traffic becomes more exposed to the Internet and moves out of the control of traditional network security boundaries, SWG technologies continue to be an important piece of the overall security technology strategy of most enterprises.”

Symantec was the largest security software vendor in terms of revenue despite suffering its second consecutive year of decline, dropping down 1.3 percent to $3.7 billion. The decrease was due to a drop off of 6.2 percent in the consumer security software segment, according to Gartner. Second on the list was Intel (McAfee), whose revenues grew 4.6 percent in 2014 and reached $1.8 billion. Third was IBM, which saw its security software revenue jump 17 percent last year to $1.5 billion, partially on the back of a 21 percent growth in its SIEM product.

The SIEM market overall grew 11 percent in 2014 to hit $1.6 billion in revenue. The growth was driven by a strong focus on threat detection and response from security buyers as well as purchases from first-time adopters of SIEM in emerging markets, Gartner found.

According to Gartner, the DLP market increased 15.8 percent year-over-year, reaching $643 million in 2014, primarily due to strong sales by Symantec in the segment and stable performances by other vendors. However, 2014 will likely be the last year the DLP market will show solid double-digit growth in its current form due to the rise of channel DLP and “DLP lite” offerings, explained Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner.

“Most established vendors in this space are transforming the way they deliver comprehensive DLP capabilities, and this transition period will likely impact growth in coming years,” Contu said in a statement.