The security software market rebounded well in 2010 following a disappointing 2009, Gartner has claimed.
The market grew 12 per cent last year as total revenue hit $16.5 billion - up from 2009 revenue of $14.7 billion.
"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 startup companies," said Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner.
"Key vendors continued to expand their product portfolios, buying companies where appropriate and expanding their reach into emerging markets."
Symantec remained the dominant force in the industry, although experienced below average growth over the year.
It achieved 18.9 per cent market share in 2010, compared to McAfee on 10.4 per cent in second place.
Out of the top 5 players, Trend Micro in third saw the lowest growth with 5.8 per cent.
IBM was in fourth, followed by EMC, which achieved an impressive 25.6 per cent growth over 2010.
As for a breakdown of the different segments of the market, Gartner noted more mature areas like endpoint security and web access management showed single-digit growth.
In comparison, areas including security information and event management (SIEM) and secure web gateway products experienced double-digit growth.
