The EMEA enterprise network security market shows 7.2% Y-o-Y growth for Q1 2011, with public sector budget cuts and national debt issues continuing to curb W. European investment, according to Canalys' latest report.
Making up for the public sector is the financial services industry and its current spending increases (in a bid to reduce latency and minise highly-publicised security breaches).
Meanwhile North Africa and the Middle East face further security project delays due to the Arab Spring-- with Canalys saying delays are likely to persist for some time yet.
Canalys says the increase in local and international industrial regulatory requirements provide "critical counterbalance" to public budget cuts and weak government spending.
Cisco remains WW market leader-- even if it sees Y-o-Y market share loss (from 27.9% to 25.8%). Check Point comes second (with 13% market share), and Juniper Network follows (at 12%).
The analyst also says aggressive pricing tactics are hindering some vendors' performance-- as Palo Alto Networks, SonicWALL and WatchGuard attempt to gain more share.
Canalys predicts mergers and acquisitions will continue throughout the year, with vendors trying to become enterprise security "one-stop shops" and hardware vendors' attempts at boosting their portfolios with security offerings.
It also says the service provider sector will gain a boost over the rest of 2011-- operators will orient their security requirements to handle DDoS attacks and mobile backhaul issues. Meanwhile Network Access Control (NAC) adoption will remain healthy, thanks to increasing smartphone adoption by enterprise networks.
Go Canalys Reports WW Q1 2011 Enterprise Network Security Market Results
