The global security appliance market has reached $2.3bn during the fourth quarter of 2012 (4Q12), reporting a 7.2% rise in revenues compared to corresponding quarter in 2011, according to a new report.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker revealed that security appliance shipments have risen 5.2% during the quarter to 538,428 units.
During the quarter, Asia/Pacific topped the list with a revenue share of 19.3%, followed by the US with 4.1% revenue growth and Western Europe reported a 3.9% rise in revenues versus Q4 2011.
IDC Security Products research manager John Grady said typical 4Q seasonality seemed to have helped the market a bit, with overall growth picking up thanks to end of year initiatives on the vendor side and budget flush on the buyer side.
"Organizations continue to prioritize security within their overall IT budget. With advanced, targeted threats a growing concern, IDC expects continued high single-digit growth in the security appliance segment," Grady said.
Cisco captured 15.5% of overall security appliance market and topped the list, followed by Check Point with a 12.7% share, while Fortinet reported the highest revenue rise with 27.2% growth.
However, the combined shares of the top 5 global vendors, including Cisco, Check Point, Juniper, Fortinet and McAfee represented 46.3% of the market in Q4 2012, reporting a 2.6 point loss compared to the year ago period.
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During the quarter, the Unified Threat Management (UTM) segment reported 34.3% rise in revenue, which accounted for 35% of security appliance revenue.
The Firewall/VPN market captured 24% of security appliance revenue, while the IPS segment dropped 3.6% over the previous year.
IDC Worldwide Trackers Group senior research analyst Ebenezer Obeng-Nyarkoh said: "While businesses continue to explore the opportunities for migrating to a private cloud network as a new technology paradigm, unified security prospects will continue to expand rapidly into small and medium-size businesses where demand is greater than ever."
