"This quarter sees the first double-digit annual growth in the security appliance market since the impact of the economic downturn showed during the first quarter of 2009," said Romain Fouchereau, research analyst at IDC. "Though this is an important step, with results so weak in 2Q09, it is important to put this growth into perspective. This quarter, not only did UTM and content management appliances show a strong increase, as in previous quarters, but the Western European security appliance market as a whole resumed its growth in both revenue and unit shipments."
The firewall market represented $97.41 million in 2Q10, a 16.1% increase over last year's second quarter. The firewall/VPN market is becoming more mature in Western Europe and has seen slow growth over the last few quarters. As in the past few quarters, however, 2Q10 has seen very strong growth for higher-end firewalls. Lower-end firewall appliances didn't perform as well, as end customers prefer to deploy UTM appliances rather than dedicated FW standalone solutions. Cisco remained the number 1 vendor in the segment, followed by Juniper, with Check Point in third place.
UTM was the largest market of the tracked security appliances, with total revenue of $129.5 million in the last quarter, for 22.7% growth over 2Q09. During the current economic uncertainty, UTM vendors should do relatively well due to the integrated solutions offered by UTM appliances, with customers wanting more for less from vendors. This quarter, Fortinet regained the top spot, followed by Cisco and Juniper.
IPS solutions revenue increased 5.4% over last year's second quarter, for a market value of $65.5 million. IPS was the security appliance segment most affected by the recession, one of the reasons being the postponement of security investments, but this quarter's results show a rebound for that segment. Cisco was market leader, followed by IBM-ISS and TippingPoint.
Content management appliance revenue showed the strongest growth again this quarter, with a 39.2% increase year on year, reaching $97million in 2Q10. Content management appliances are on a par with firewall appliances as the second-largest security appliance segment behind UTM and now represent 21.7% of the total market. This quarter, MacAfee took the top spot for the first time, relegating Cisco to second position. Cisco had the largest market share in the messaging subcategory, with McAfee leading the Web security and WAM subsegments.
The VPN appliance market reached $52.9 million in 2Q10, a 13.2% increase over 2Q09. IDC believes that with the ever-increasing number of remote and mobile workers, the VPN market has strong potential for growth in the years to come. Juniper was the market leader, followed by Cisco, with Check Point in third place.