Worldwide revenue for mobile device security client software is up 10 percent sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2014, to $385 million, according to a report from IT analytics firm Infonetics Research.
In 2013, enterprise mobile clients comprised 51 percent of the total security client market, while consumer mobile security clients made up slightly less than half (49 percent).
The report also revealed the Asia Pacific region accounted for 34 percent of security client revenue in 2013, followed closely by North America (32 percent) and Europe the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), with 31 percent. Latin America came in a very distant fourth
Although North America greatly lags behind EMEA and Asia Pacific in total smartphone shipments, it has strong security client adoption relative to the other regions.
“The triple threat of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) as a dominant enterprise trend, an increasingly hostile threat environment, and the deluge of frightening revelations about privacy courtesy of the NSA is forcing enterprises and consumers to invest real money in mobile device security,” Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security at Infonetics Research, said in a statement. “The mobile device security software market grew 40 percent to cross the billion-dollar mark in 2013 and we expect it to grow to $3.4 billion in 2018.”
Infonetics’ biannual mobile security client report provides regional and worldwide market size, forecasts through 2018, analysis, and trends for the enterprise and consumer mobile device security client software markets. The report tracks revenue, licenses, and revenue per license by quarter.
A report released earlier this year by Infonetics found a majority of enterprises they surveyed cited delivering solutions that effectively handle mobile application control and mixed personal and business use as strong drivers for deploying mobile device security.
When it comes to providing mobile device security, nearly half of respondents place their trust in the device operating system (OS) manufacturers, waiting for security features to be embedded into the OS itself rather than using overlay security solutions.
About half of those surveyed said they have dealt with lost or stolen devices containing sensitive or proprietary data, but only 15 percent (or less) believe that remote wipe, device location, or disk/file/SD card encryption are key technologies for their mobile security solution.
The report said what the industry needs are solutions capable of securing all company- and employee-owned devices from the same console, to ensure an identical level of protection for all devices, which means deploying security in the network or cloud as well as on the device.