Sophos claims it is winning marketshare from rivals

Cybersecurity vendor grows sales by 22 per cent for its full 2017/18 year

Sophos' CEO has claimed the cybersecurity vendor is grabbing marketshare from its competitors after annual sales hiked by more than a fifth.

The London-listed vendor, which claims to sell exclusively through the channel, grew revenue by 21 per cent to $641m in the year to 31 March 2018, with billings hiking by 22 per cent to $769m.

Sales of Sophos Central more than doubled, from $88m to $186m, while Sophos said its total subscription renewal base has now breached the $1bn barrier.

CEO Kris Hagerman (pictured) dubbed 2018 a "strong year".

"We continue to take share in the market, as we execute a differentiated strategy of delivering advanced and highly-effective cybersecurity solutions designed to be simple to use, managed in the cloud, and sold 100 per cent through our channel partners," he said.

Putting Hagerman's claims to the test, out of some of Sophos' key rivals, Symantec grew 2017 sales by 12 per cent to $4.02bn, while Kaspersky saw its 2017 (unaudited) revenues bounce eight per cent to $698m. Trend Micro, meanwhile, posted a 13 per cent rise in sales to $1.33bn.

According to Gartner, total global IT security spending vaulted 8.4 per cent last year to reach $89.1bn.

Sophos' adjusted operating profits nearly matched revenues by rising 20 per cent to $46m, although the firm posted a pre-tax loss of $52m on the back of foreign exchange losses.

Hagerman added: "We have a massive market opportunity in front of us, and our strong and growing subscription base and growth in new customers, combined with our next-generation technology in endpoint and firewall and our Sophos Central cloud platform, position us well for FY19 and beyond."