Despite a slower growth rate in the Asia Pacific security software market of 28 percent in 2008, down from 36 percent in 2007, the results suggest no significant impact from the economic downturn, Gartner says.
“This growth is remarkable considering in the fourth quarter of 2008, global economies began to feel the impact of the credit crunch and the global economic downturn,” says Matthew Cheung, senior research analyst, Gartner. “Double digit growth in a challenging economic climate confirms that security remains a key priority for Asia Pacific CIOs and IT security leaders.” Gartner's report says data security, and protecting infrastructure from increasing and more sophisticated attacks, were among the main reasons for the growth. The biggest growth areas were the secure web gateway, security information event management. Consumer security and endpoint protection continued to be the largest segments of the security market for the year. China, Australia and South Korea were the largest security markets in 2008, with China having the fastest growth. Cheung says the Asia Pacific region is viewed as a "large, long-term sustainable market”. The top five vendors held almost half of the region's market share in 2008, reflected in the table below. Symantec continued as the market leader, taking 22 percent market share last year. McAfee had the strongest growth of the five vendors. Total Security Revenue Market Share: Top 5 Vendors, Asia/Pacific, 2008
Source: Gartner (June 2009) |