Security software revenue grew 5.3 percent to $21.4 billion in 2014, said Gartner. Symantec and Trend Micro reported dip in 2014 revenues.
The Gartner report noted low growth in endpoint protection platforms and decline in consumer security software. These two markets account for 39 percent of security software revenue.
Strong performance observed in areas like security information and event management (SIEM), secure Web gateway (SWG), identity governance and administration (IGA) and enterprise content-aware data loss prevention (DLP).
“Even though the SWG segment experienced single-digit growth in 2014, cloud-based and hybrid SWG deployments are becoming popular,” said Sid Deshpande, principal research analyst at Gartner.
SWG technologies are key component of security technology strategy of most enterprises because organizations’ corporate data traffic becomes more exposed to the Internet and moves out of the control of traditional network security boundaries.
Symantec revenue declined 1.3 percent to $3.7 billion. 6.2 percent decrease in the consumer security software segment, which forms 53 percent of Symantec’s security software revenue, was the primary cause of the decline in revenue growth.
Intel-promoted McAfee revenue grew 4.6 percent in 2014 to $1.8 billion. Revenue declines in consumer security software and endpoint protection platforms, which form 75 percent of its security software revenue, balanced the performance in other segments.
IBM’s security software revenue grew 17 percent in 2014 to $1.5 billion. Its SIEM software products grew 21 percent, driven by strong adoption of this category of products by enterprises and managed security service providers (MSSPs) alike.