Both factory revenues and security appliance unit shipments continued to grow in the first half of 2015, with worldwide vendor revenues increasing 9.6 percent year over year to US$4.9 billion, and volume shipments expanding to 1.1 million following 8.8 percent year over year growth.
According to IDC findings, for the second quarter of 2015 (2Q15), worldwide vendor revenues increased 12.2 percent year over year to US$2.6 billion, marking the 23rd consecutive quarter of revenue growth.
Shipments grew 10.6 percent year over year for the seventh consecutive quarter of volume growth ending 2Q15 at 567,388 units shipped.
In, Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)(APeJ) continued to experience solid year-over-year growth in the second quarter of 2015 and accounted for 17.6 percent and 21.6 percent of unit shipments and vendor revenue, respectively.
IDC claims that the regional market is primarily driven by China, which accounted for more than 50.0 percent of both unit shipments and vendor revenue and grew more than twice as fast as the regional market.
“Cybercrime remains a growing global problem and attacks against mission-critical and sensitive services or systems that leads to massive data leaks continue to have far-reaching effects,” says Ebenezer Obeng-Nyarkoh, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Trackers Group, IDC.
“Because there are so many ingenious ways into a network, having sophisticated cyber security measures is not the end game of a defensive prevention strategy.
“The key is faster identification and prevention and this is why in the last seven consecutive quarters the deployment of intrusion detection and prevention solutions (IDP) have been gaining traction.
“Even though this category only represents 4.2 per cent of volume shipments, we are seeing remarkable expansion with the second quarter showing 13.7 per cent year-over-year growth.”
Vendors
Cisco continued to lead the overall security appliance market with 17.1 per cent share in vendor revenue and a net loss of 1.1 points of share year over year and 0.5 points sequentially.
Overall revenue expanded 5.9 per cent year over year and 8.5 per cent sequentially.
Check Point remained the number 2 security appliance vendor with 11.9 per cent year-over-year and 6.7 per cent sequential revenue growth. Check Point ended the quarter with 12.8 per cent worldwide revenue share.
Since entering the top 5 in the second half of 2013, Palo Alto Networks has consistently grown its revenues faster than the overall market. In 2Q15, Palo Alto Networks grew its revenue 51.5 per cent year over year with a net gain of 2.4 share points when compared to the same quarter a year ago.
Fortinet was the number 4 vendor with worldwide market share of 8.3 percent, resulting in a net gain of 0.7 share points sequentially and 1.1 points year over year. Fortinet had double-digit revenue growth of 30.3 per cent in 2Q15.
Blue Coat rounded out the top 5 vendor list with solid year-over-year revenue growth of 7.3 per cent despite a net loss of -0.4 share points sequentially.
