The biggest cybersecurity vendors – particularly those with a platform strategy – tightened their stranglehold of the market in Q1 of 2023, according to Canalys.
Leading duo Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet grew their marketshare to 8.7% and 7.0%, respectively, after outstripping the 12.5% year-on-year growth posted by the wider market in the first three months of the year, the market watcher claimed.
Total cybersecurity sales hit $18.6bn in the period, with Palo Alto (+23.6% annual growth), Fortinet (+26.2%), Cisco (+1.4%), Crowdstrike (+39.9%) and Check Point (+4.2%) making up the top five vendors.
“The leading vendors continued to increase their share of total spend, especially those with platform strategies, as customers consolidated multi-point products to cut costs,” Canalys confirmed.
Some of that growth was due to higher price rises, with network security prices hiking by 9.0% during the quarter.
Canalys conceded that customers prioritised urgent projects as macroeconomic conditions worsened.
“Results from the largest cybersecurity vendors showed enhancing cyber-resiliency remained a priority for most organisations, despite ongoing macroeconomic challenges and greater IT budget scrutiny,” said Matthew Ball, Chief Analyst at Canalys.
“But they also showed cybersecurity will not be fully immune to budget cuts in 2023. Competition between vendors will intensify, though most will grow by upselling additional subscriptions to existing accounts. Spending will continue to be heavily scrutinised throughout this year.”
Outside of the top five, authentication vendor Okta, Microsoft and ZScaler enjoyed the strongest growth (at a respective 26.4%, 32.3% and 42.6%).
Although Canalys did not break out channel versus direct sales for the quarter, it pegged the indirect portion at 91% of the total market in 2022.
EMEA more than pulled its weight during Q1 2023, with sales from this region pogoing 13.4% to $5.8bn. North American sales rose 12.3% to $9.7bn, while Asia Pacific sales grew 10.7% to $2.5bn.
While sales among large and medium-sized customers grew 13.3% and 13.5%, respectively, sales among small and micro businesses grew at a more muted 7.5% and 4.3%.
