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Security appliances a growing market

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) security appliance market recorded year-on-year growth in both customer revenue and shipments during the second quarter of 2013, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). Referencing its EMEA Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker, the global market intelligence and advisory firm today revealed that customer revenues were up 13.8% on Q2 2012 to total $83.52 million, while shipments increased 10.8% over the same period to reach 18 540 units.

Faysal Ayoubi

Commenting on the market’s developments, Faysal Ayoubi, a research analyst at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, says that security will continue to be a priority across all technology segments for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). “Security will be one of the most significant emerging segments of the IT sector over the next couple of years, due to sizeable impending investments from businesses looking to secure their computing environments. With this in mind, vendors are offering efficient means to assure that threats are blocked at each level courtesy of their security products.

“The growth of the security appliances market is also heavily influenced by the evolution of new threats,” Ayoubi continues. “Moreover, the increased adoption of virtualisation within the region’s SMB segment has driven an increase in interest in security solutions that specifically target virtual environments.”

Currently, large businesses in the region tend to adopt best-of-breed security appliances such as intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and content management features, whereas SMBs prefer to install unified solutions such as unified threat management (UTM), which accounted for around 45% of MEA end-user market revenue in Q2 2013.

In line with the current market trends toward converged network infrastructures and simplified IT architectures, demand for UTM solutions is expected to continue growing over the next five years. “The market’s increasing inclination for UTM solutions means the uptake of standalone VPN devices and intrusion detection systems (IDS) is expected to remain at a minimal level over the coming years and will primarily be restricted to long-planned refresh cycles,” adds Ayoubi.

Cisco continued to lead the overall MEA security appliance market in Q2 2013, despite seeing its share of customer revenue fall by 4 percentage points year on year to 18.4%. Fortinet secured second spot with 15.1% share of total sales; the vendor recorded double-digit growth for the third quarter running, increasing its customer revenue by 28.2% year on year. Other vendors such as Cyberoram, Palo Alto Networks, Baraccuda, Websense, and Netasq also showed significant growth during the quarter.

“Increasing competition in the market, as well as an anticipated consolidation trend among the market’s players, is causing vendor focus to shift toward firewalls and security solutions that specifically address the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon,” says Ayoubi. “This shift in strategy is primarily aimed at staving off competition while increasing profitability and market share.”

For more information, contact Anulekha Shetty, [email protected]

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