Security Software Revenue Rises 7.5%, But Symantec Grows Faster Than Industry In 2011

Global security software revenues advanced 7.5 percent in 2011 over 2010. However, Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) witnessed a faster growth rate of 17 percent with a market share of 20.6 percent, leaving others to fight among themselves for the second slot in the security software revenue space.

Unfortunately, this is not enough for Symantec to reverse the downward earnings revision for the March quarter it disclosed a few days back on lower than estimated license performance.

Global security software generated revenues of $17.7 billion in 2011 representing growth of 7.5 percent, data from Gartner suggests. This was fueled by demand from small or medium size business, persistent threats apart from compliance.

Symantec alone generates revenues of $3.65 billion, growing at a pace of 17.0 percent over 2010's $3.12 billion. This was possible due to retaining its position in both enterprises and consumer security space. Additionally, the company gained from continued expansion of its offering that goes past normal endpoint security.

McAfee suffered the most with revenues recording a 27.5 percent downside to $1.23 billion from $1.69 billion in the last year. Its share in 2011 stood at 6.9 percent. This is threatened by Trend Micro, which is in the third slot with a share of 6.8 percent. Only ten basis points separate McAfee and Trend Micro, whose revenue grew 11.3 percent to $1.21 billion over $1.08 billion in 2010. Trend Micro generated revenues from organic growth rather than acquisitions. The company strengthened its position in both enterprises and consumer security space.

Meanwhile, International Business Machine (NYSE: IBM) generated 14.2 percent more revenue from security software to $930.1 million from $814.7 million. The company's share in 2011 was 5.3 percent, according to Gartner.

EMC (NYSE: EMC) also generated revenues of $716.1 million, 14.3 percent more than $626.6 million in 2010. The company had a share of 4.0 percent in 2011.

Interestingly, all other security software cornered revenues of $9.985 billion representing 9.3 percent growth from $9.14 billion. In 2011, the small players combined have a market share of 56.4 percent. Major companies will be eyeing to take a slice of this share in the years to come.

Global Security Software Revenue Market Share Estimates, 2011 (In Millions $)

Source: Gartner