Worldwide Security Server Appliance Market Hits $379 Million
January 7, 2004

The worldwide security server appliance market reached $379.1 million in revenues for the third quarter of 2003, representing a 22% growth rate over the third quarter of 2002, according to the Worldwide Quarterly Security Appliance Server Tracker report from market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC).

Within the overall market, the intrusion detection appliance segment nearly doubled over the previous year, posting an 89% growth. The firewall/virtual private network (VPN) appliance market, meanwhile, remained the largest segment, ending Q303 with $317.7 million in factory revenue.

"IDC expects the security appliance market, in particular the intrusion detection appliance market, to continue its strong growth in 2004," IDC Security Products service research director Charles Kolodgy said in a press release. "A number of new security appliance options have been introduced to the market and this appears to be fueling the growth."

Regions increasing their market shares included Western Europe and Japan. The U.S. and Asia/Pacific outside of Japan were found to have slightly less market share. The U.S. leads the market with 45.3% of total worldwide revenues.

The top five security appliance vendors maintained their positions. Cisco continues to hold the number one position with $133 million in revenues, a 12% increase from Q302. Netscreen maintained the number two position with $57 million in revenues, experiencing a one-year growth rate of 91%. Nokia, SonicWall and WatchGuard rounded out the top five, with all three experiencing slight declines in year-to-year growth and market share.

"The numbers do not tell the whole story," Kolodgy said. "All the vendors have just introduced new models, which in a time of growing demand, should result in some strong growth over the next few quarters."

The three most expensive price bands ($25,000 to $49,900, $50,000 to $99,900, and $100,000 to $249,900) all had year-to-year growth rates of more than 100%, with the largest growth in the $100,000 to $249,9000 range, which experienced a 348% increase in Q303.