Security appliance market set to bounce back, says IDC

After a challenging start to the year, the Western European security appliance market turned around in 4Q09 to reach the same results as in the final quarter of the previous year, says IDC (NYSE:IDC).

4Q09 revenues for the Western European security appliance market reached US $449.5m in factory revenue, a 0.1 percent decrease over the same quarter a year ago. In 2009, security appliance market revenue totaled $1.61bn, representing a 3.0 percent decrease over 2008.
Firewalls
The firewall/VPN market represented $90.7m in 4Q09, a 33.2 percent increase over last year’s fourth quarter. The market, which is maturing in Western Europe, has seen slow growth in recent quarters. However, 4Q09 saw very strong growth for the higher-end firewalls (51 percent growth in the $100K+ price band). Lower-end firewall appliances didn’t perform as well, as customers prefer to deploy UTM appliances rather than dedicated FW/VPN. Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) remained the number one vendor in the segment, followed by Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK).
UTMs
UTM was the largest market of the tracked security appliances, with total revenue of $137m in the last quarter, corresponding to 5.2 percent growth over 4Q08. During this time of economic uncertainty, IDC says UTM vendors should do well due to the integrated solutions offered by UTM appliances, as customers will want more for less from the vendors. Fortinet was the market leader, followed by Juniper and McAfee (Secure Computing) (NYSE: MFE).

IPS
IPS was the security appliance segment most affected by the recession, partly because of the postponement of security investments in 2009. The market decreased by 14.5 percent over the previous year’s fourth quarter. Cisco was market leader, followed by McAfee and IBM ISS.
 Content Management
Content management appliance revenue showed the strongest growth this quarter at 32.2 percent year on year, reaching $90.7m in 4Q09. In 4Q09 it became the second largest segment behind UTM. Again, Cisco remained the number one vendor in the content management appliance segment and the messaging security subcategory. McAfee led the web security and web and messaging (WAM) subcategories.

VPNs
The VPN appliance market reached $52.3m in 4Q09, a 17.5 percent decrease over 4Q08. IDC believes that with the increasing number of remote workers, heightened threats, and also pandemic fear, the VPN market has strong potential for growth in the years to come. Juniper was market leader, followed by Cisco and Check Point (Nasdaq: CHKP).