The global security software market grew by 5.3% from 2013 to 2014 to reach $21.4bn by the year’s end, although market leader Symantec slumped for the second year in a row, according to Gartner.
The analyst revealed in its Market Share Analysis: Security Software, Worldwide, 2014 report that market growth rose from the 4.9% experienced the previous year, with areas such as security information and event management (SIEM), secure web gateway, DLP and identity governance all doing well.
However, this was tempered by poor performance in the endpoint security sector and a decline in revenue for consumer security software – two areas which account for over a third (39%) of the market.
SIEM did particularly well – both in on-premise and as part of managed security services – growing 11% to reach $1.6bn. No doubt some of this growth was driven by organizations looking to combat the rising threat of targeted attacks.
SIEM tools can collect and analyse data from disparate network, security, server and other systems to spot patterns which could reveal signs of a compromise.
Elsewhere, DLP grew by 15.3% to reach $643m for the year. This was down to a good showing by Symantec – which accounts for around half of the market – and other major vendors in the segment.
However, the days of double digit growth are set to end after 2014, according to research director, Ruggero Contu.
“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,” he claimed.
As for Symantec, despite that good performance in the DLP space, the market leader with a share of 17.2% saw revenue decline 1.3% to $3.69bn.
This is in stark contrast to the chasing pack of Intel and IBM in second and third place respectively.
Intel, which bought McAfee five years ago, has a share around half that of Symantec’s at 8.5% but saw growth of 4.6% to reach $1.8bn.
Big Blue, meanwhile, has 6.9% of the market but grew a whopping 17% last year to reach $1.5bn.
Trend Micro in fourth also had a sub-standard year, falling 5.2% to sit at just over $1bn in revenue, while EMC – which includes RSA Security – rose 5% to $798m.