The worldwide market for virtual- and software-as-a-service(SaaS)-based network security solutions achieved its twentieth consecutive quarter of sequential revenue growth in 1Q 2023, according to a recently published report from Dell’Oro Group.
The pace of year-over-year (Y/Y) revenue growth for these solutions was over 20 percent in 1Q 2023, which was over twice as strong as for the traditional network security hardware appliances.
Network security solutions available in a virtual- or SaaS-based form factors span both traditional and newer product segments, such as firewalls, security service edge (SSE), secure web gateway (SWG), and web application firewalls (WAF).
“The shift to a cloud-centric IT architecture created a seismic shift in how enterprises consume network security technology with virtual- and SaaS-based network solutions grabbing the limelight,” said Mauricio Sanchez, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “In a world where applications, data, and users are all over the globe, the traditional approach of deploying hardware just doesn’t cut it anymore, and it’s the flexibility and agility of software and cloud-delivered form factors that are the better fit for the modern enterprise,” added Sanchez.
Additional highlights from the 1Q 2023 Network Security Quarterly Report:
- Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks, and Akamai owned over a third of the network security market consisting of virtual- and SaaS-based solutions.
- Zscaler was the top vendor in the SSE market, which is entirely SaaS-based (cloud-delivered).
- Palo Alto Networks cracked into the top three due to its strong performance in the SSE and virtual firewall markets.
- Akamai was the leading vendor in the SaaS-based WAF market.
The Dell’Oro Group Network Security Report includes manufacturers’ revenue covering the ADC, Email Security, Firewall, SSE, SWG, and WAF product segments.
Moreover, SSEs are further broken down across four primary functions, CASB, FWaaS, SWG, and ZTNA.
The report also splits many segments by form factor: physical, virtual, and SaaS.
