Mobile device security a $1bn market

Mobile security client sales grew 40 per cent last year on back of BYOD, NSA headlines and hostile threat environment

Mobile device security software has become a $1bn (£0.6bn) market as BYOD, the increasingly potent threat landscape and the NSA revelations force businesses and consumers to invest "real money" in this area.

That's according to Infonetics Research, which said the market grew 40 per cent to cross the billion-dollar mark last year and will grow to $3.2bn in 2018.

In Q4 2013, the market grew 10 per cent sequentially to $385m, the market watcher said.

"The triple threat of BYOD as a dominant enterprise trend, an increasingly hostile threat environment, and the deluge of frightening revelations about privacy courtesy of the NSA is forcing enterprises and consumers to invest real money in mobile device security," said Infonetics principal analyst for security, Jeff Wilson.

Enterprise mobile clients accounted for 51 per cent of the total last year, with consumer mobile security clients generating the remainder, Infonetics said.

By region, it was a near even split between Asia-Pacific (34 per cent), North America (32 per cent) and EMEA (31 per cent), with Latin America a distant fourth. The North American market is by far the most mature, however, with much stronger security client adoption relative to the number of smartphones shipped, Infonetics said.