Worldwide security software revenue is forecast to surpass $16.5bn in 2010, an increase of 11.3% from 2009 revenue of $14.8bn, according to information technology research and advisory firm Gartner.
Gartner said that organisations have indicated an intention to give priority to security budgets although the economic downturn slowed security revenue to 7% growth in 2009.
Gartner principal research analyst Ruggero Contu said that the most segments of the security software market will continue to grow over the next few years, although a significant degree of variation is expected between the more-established and less-mature technologies.
"Overall, security will remain one of the fastest-growing areas within the enterprise software market," Contu said.
Gartner analysts said security software markets will weather the current economic downturn better than in 2001 and 2002, because the market conditions are dramatically different in terms of maturity, penetration, confidence in IT, and geographic and vertical mix.
The market researcher estimates that consumer security software market will reach $4.2bn in 2010, up from $3.9bn in 2009. It anticipates endpoint protection platform (enterprise) revenue to reach $3bn in 2010, up from $2.9bn in 2009.
The report revealed that the compliance remains an important driver across user provisioning, security information and event management (SIEM) and mobile data protection. It estimates identity and access management to grow to more than $12bn by 2014.
