McAfee sees no slowdown in sales

McAfee has logged its twelfth consecutive quarter of double-digit sales growth as it impressed Wall Street with another solid set of financial results.

The security giant posted a 19 per cent year-on-year rise in revenue to $424m (£292m) for its final quarter of 2008, as both consumers and corporate users continued to shore up their defenses against malware.

Recent acquisition Secure Computing weighed in with $46m in sales since the deal was closed on 18 November.

Net profits on a generally accepted accounting principle basis more than trebled to $45.4m.

In an indication that the security sector remains in rude health, McAfee also issued a bullish forecast for its current quarter. It expects first-quarter revenue to come in between $440m to $460m – way ahead of analyst expectations.

McAfee's full-year sales hit $1.6bn, up 22 per cent on an annual comparison and chief executive Dave DeWalt said: “McAfee's 2008 results reflect our security market leadership and above-market growth rate.

“Year-over-year corporate revenue grew 25 per cent, consumer revenue grew 18 per cent and we delivered double-digit growth in all five geographies and across all product segments.”

As well as recently appointing David Quantrell as EMEA president, the vendor has also taken on Mark Tonnesen as senior vice president (SVP) and chief information officer.

Other new faces include Marc Olesen as SVP and general manager of the SaaS security business unit, and Rob Louks as SVP of worldwide professional services.