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Worldwide unified threat management revenue reached $1.2 billion in 2011, a 19.6 percent increase from 2010 revenue of $972 million, according to IT research firm Gartner.
Fortinet remained the top vendor in revenue in 2011, accounting for 19.6 percent of the market, followed by SonicWall with 13.3 percent and Juniper Networks with 11.8 percent. CheckPoint Software Technologies and WatchGuard Technologies followed, each with a market share of 10.9 percent.
North America was the largest market for UTM products, totaling $431 million in 2011, an increase of 15.5 percent from 2010 revenue of $373 million. North America was driven by strong payment card industry demand requiring both firewalls and intrusion-prevention technologies in midsize businesses with higher credit card transaction volumes and greater interest to protect against network-based attacks.
“The UTM market is in the midst of a transition of its customers from older technologies, such as stateful firewall inspection, to the latest next-generation firewall technology supporting application control capabilities,” said Lawrence Pingree, research director at Gartner. “Many UTM vendors delivered new products during the last several years with some vendors performing product refresh efforts to their UTM portfolios while others worked to expand their small and midsize business (SMB) offerings and wireless UTM offerings.”
Western Europe was the second-largest market for UTM products with 2011 revenue reaching $310 million, up 16.7 percent from $266 million in 2010. The report noted growth was driven by the same macro consolidation and regulatory and threat-based product acquisition themes as in North America, but with an emphasis on EU data-protection mandates. Consolidation into virtualized environments, as well as IT cost-savings measures related to regional recessionary forces, also drove stronger growth in the combined UTM appliances in 2011, Gartners report said.
In Japan, significant UTM market impacts were seen in 2011 after the earthquake and tsunami events. UTM revenue in Japan totaled $32 million in 2011, a 4.7 percent increase from $30 million in 2010. Government debt increases and tax reform concerns further dampened spending in the region, as organizations continued to assess the Japanese economic situation. However, the region is still growing and this slow growth is believed to be a temporary condition, the report noted.
The Asia-Pacific had the strongest growth of any region in 2011, showing a 31.8 percent increase in 2011. UTM revenue reached $204 million in 2011, up from $155 million in 2010. This growth was driven by SECUI, a Korean UTM technology provider focused on the Asia-Pacific region, as well as managed security companies in this region focusing on the monitoring and maintenance of UTM products as part of its overall security service portfolio. SECUI showed the strongest growth of any UTM vendor, increasing its revenue 59 percent year-over-year.