Antivirus June 2010: Worldwide Market Share Report

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Introduction

Although the true market share of security applications often remains hidden, software vendors will claim to dominate a market based on their sales numbers vs. the reported sales numbers of their competitors. However, as a unique alternative, we are able to present the following report based purely on the detection of the applications that tens of thousands of users actually have installed on their endpoints.

Because application detection relies on the detection capabilities of the OESIS Framework, data is limited to applications that are included in the framework’s libraries. Antivirus vendors looking for inclusion in the OESIS Framework are free to partner with OPSWAT through the OESIS OK Certification Program, which offers interoperability certification for security applications.

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Conclusions

It is useful to see the sheer variety of vendors that are occupying a 1-6% antivirus application market share. Though, in the United States, Symantec and McAfee are often positioned as the top choices, the reality is that competition is alive and well in this highly-fragmented sector. Innovations in anti-malware products are therefore, likely partially a function of the increasing variety/intelligence of malware authors as well as a desire to stay afloat in a highly competitive marketplace.

European vendors, which include: AVAST, Avira, AVG, ESET, Panda, BitDefender, G Data and Sophos total just over 50% of the market. Whereas US-based vendors, which include: Symantec, Microsoft, McAfee, PC Tools (acquired by Symantec), Sunbelt and Comodo make up just over 30%.

Microsoft has established itself as a significant competitor in the security application space, making the WA-based giant a legitimate challenger to pure-play security players Symantec and McAfee.

42% of the product market is controlled by free products, while vendors that primarily offer a free product have a 48% market share. It would appear that end users have as much faith in the ability of free antivirus applications to keep them secure as they do paid antivirus.

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