India to lead IT security market, to touch $142m
By siliconindia staff writer   |   Friday, 23 April 2004, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE : Research agency Frost & Sullivan has predicted that the enterprise security solutions market in India will grow from $29.5m this year to $142.5m in '10. India , along with other Asian countries such as China are seen as the main growth drivers of this market globally. The banking and financial services market (BFSI) segment is the strongest adopter of security solutions with 36% share, Frost & Sullivan’s marketing consultant, Anand Rangachary, told reporters in Bangalore . According to the organisation’s research of over 80 companies across India , there has also been strong growth in the service provider and software markets. The Frost & Sullivan study, titled ‘Indian network security markets: an overview,’ has revealed that large companies are the largest providers of security solutions in India, but the small and medium business segment, is growing fastest at 35.1% CAGR. The increased spend by SMBs is focused on basic IT security requirements such as a firewall (a set of computer programs that protects the resources of a private network from users from other networks) and protection for a VPN, which are ways to communicate through a dedicated server securely to a corporate network over the internet. The study has researched the firewall, VPN and intrusion detection system (IDS — a program that finds unauthorised users on a network), markets, but has left out the mature anti-virus solutions segment from its analysis. Despite the strong growth in India , the amount corporations spend on security is low, Mr Rangachary contended. Most Indian firms today spend between 1-10% of their IT budgets on IT security needs, with just a handful of financial services institutions spending around 25%. This despite the rapid evolution of malicious threats, with worms and viruses being generated in seconds compared to days and weeks earlier, he added. With increased networking, companies’ networks have now encompass both their customers and business partners, providing more opportunities to attackers. Indian companies are well behind their more advanced Asian counterparts in terms of adopting security policies to safeguard their networks. In addition, the IDS market was seen sluggish growth, as IT managers were muddled by the advent of new variants in this segment. These include intrusion detection and prevention systems as well as intrusion prevention systems. In India , the implementation of these systems is its infancy currently, Mr Rangachary said. Cisco currently has 48.4% marketshare in the Indian market, followed by software vendor Check Point with 11.8%, Nokia with 10.9% and Netscreen with 6.7%. Symantec, which has a sizeable share in the anti-virus segment, is a minor player in the market, with just 0.5% share.

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