Worldwide security software revenue witnessed a growth of 12% in 2010 to $16.5 billion, driven by a rebound in demand for such solutions, according to research firm Gartner.
According to Gartner, global security software revenue grew from $14.7 billion in 2009 to $16.5 billion in 2010, a growth of about 12%.
"Key vendors continued to expand their product portfolios, buying companies where appropriate and expanding their reach into emerging markets," Gartner Principal Research Analyst Ruggero Contu said in a statement.
While mature areas like endpoint security and web access management showed single-digit growth, security information and event management (SIEM) and secure web gateway products experienced double-digit growth, Gartner said.
"Products within the security market are undergoing rapid evolution, in terms of both new delivery models -- with security as a service showing increasing popularity -- and new technologies being introduced, often by start-up companies," Contu said.
Symantec retained its market share lead and accounted for 18.9% of total security software revenue in 2010, while McAfee had a 10.4% share.
Trend Micro, IBM and EMC followed with 6.3%, 4.9% and 3.8% shares of the market, respectively.
