Cisco Leads Security Appliance Market in Q4 2013

Cisco (CSCO) continues to lead the overall security appliance market in market share and revenue, but not year-over-year growth, even though it reported a jump of 23.6 percent year over year in that last category.

A recent International Data Corp. (IDC) report revealed that Cisco grabbed 18.1 percent of the market in factory revenue for the fourth quarter of 2013. The report attributed Cisco’s success in the market to its acquisition of cybersecurity specialist Sourcefire.  The deal closed in early October. 

With 12.7 percent of the market, Check Point snagged $303 million in revenue and grew 5.6 on a year-over-year basis. Fortinet took third in the market, and Juniper was ranked right behind it.

While Palo Alto Networks was at the bottom of the list with only 5.4 percent of the market, it led the year-over-year growth category with a 47.7 percent jump.

“The fourth quarter was definitely a strong finish to the year, with revenue increasing 10 percent sequentially, and nearly 7 percent percent compared to last year’s fourth quarter,” IDC Security Products Program Manager John Grady said in a statement. “With high profile security incidents, such as the Target breach, becoming more common, organizations are continuing to prioritize security spending.”

For the full 2013 year, revenue grew 5.4 percent year over year to $8.6 billion. Shipments decreased fell by 2.1 percent to 2 million units.

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