North American anti-virus sales 2010

Kaspersky growing like grass, Trend Micro and Webroot also doing well. Panda and AVG losing ground.

http://www.itworldcanada.com/blogs/cdn/2011/03/18/so-who-is-kicking-butt-in-security/62889/

 

Interesting article but unfortunately it is not really possible to draw any conclusions from it. As it says in the first paragraph, the are measuring retail sales. And retail sales in the current software industry are pretty trivial. There is no doubt that Webroot, Kaspersky, etc., are growing quickly in retail but that does not mean a whole lot as the industry has primarily shifted to online distribution.

For example, we (who are not mentioned in the report) do not even sell in retail. AVG (who was mentioned negatively) is essentially an online distribution company also. It would be far more interesting to look at units sold/used across all distribtuion channels.

As an illustration of the weakness of retail, take Symantec, who on the US and world-wide levels, has been clearly the dominant retail player. But, in their December 2009 report (http://seekingalpha.com/article/184923-symantec-corp-q310-qtr-end-12-31-09-earnings-call-transcript), they reported that ecommerce was 80% of their sales which means that retail was at most 20% of their sales--as they also have ISP, etc. business. Taking a look at earlier reports, one sees that 18 or so months before this the 80% was 70%. I could not find such mentions in reports after December 2009 other than continued references that eCommerce is responsible for their growth.

From this I would bet that retail is only about 15% of world-wide consumer security sales--and much smaller in terms of units.

 

agree with avast person. also i am confused abt the %age increase is with respect to its own sales figure ??

so if i am selling 100 units and not selling 200 , i got 100% growth but that doesnt mean i am better than the person selling 10000 units which now selled 10023 units .

( pardon me as I am not from commerce background )

 

Good Morning ! Couldn't agree more with AvastCEO observation. I tend to look at security from a convenience factor, why would I want to trek to a Mall when I can compare and purchase from the comfort of my home. The times I have been at a retailer that stocks software it's marked up at an absurd margin, when the same or competing product is available on-line at a much more reasonable price point. And when companies like Avast and AVG have relied on the on-line model it illustrates the convenience factor. On-line is the way to go! Sincerely...Securon

 

i dont agree on reasonable price point ..


from what i see , the online price of product in my country ( also in many others ) are much much greater than you could buy in retail.

Eg: kaspersky : online : $59

i get it at around $10-20 box sealed

 

Good Morning ! Interesting point Nevis...I apologize as I'm looking at this from a N.American perspective...I've found that the opposite usually applies in the Canadian Market...and it might also vary in the vast U.S.A. market. Excellent point of view...from a Global economic perspective. Sincerely...Securon

 

That's different here in the U.S.. Most retail AV's you can get at a huge discount through many retail outlets, especially the Office stores.

I suspect this is why Webroot (little known?) and Kapersky are making headway as both I've seen included in discount packages and or on sale quite often. Most people in the U.S. know if you want a deal on these programs wait for the sales that happen quite often at the office supply stores.

 

Good Evening ! As I suspected Monkeybutt,due to the sheer size of the American Market,these products are often discounted. Whereas the Canadian Market might have meaningful discounts maybe two to three times a year and the Office box stores are very frugal in there approach to discounting at a Retail level...it all comes down to Economy of Scale. Too give an example Canada has only three cities of a million plus inhabitants,whereas New York City and surrounding area has in excess of 22.3 million inhabitants. The whole of Canada has 33 million including a few grain elevators,igloo's,and gophers LOL ! In summation end of comparison and argument. Sincerely...Securon

 

I find it interesting that any company executive would seemingly boast that his product is "not sold in stores."

I make note that all of the AVs mentioned in the linked article do not only sell via *brick-front stores.* They ALSO sell via online direct, AND via big-box online retailers (such as Amazon), AND via independent resellers, AND via local computer repair shops.

IMO highly successful software products such as these -- that are marketed via a broad spectrum of retailers, both online & brick-front -- present an aggressive economic model that should perhaps be emulated rather than pooh-poohed by competing software.

 

It appears that the NDP study does include at least some on-line sales (E-Commerce).

"Retail Tracking

The NPD Group's Retail Tracking Services provide unparalleled information on product movement at the point of sale, with the most extensive network of retail partnerships across all of the industries we track. Today over 900 retailers representing more than 150,000 stores worldwide provide NPD with national-level point-of-sale data from:

* Department Stores
* Specialty Retailers
* Mass Merchants
* Direct/Catalog
* National Chains
* E-COMMERCE
* Dollar Stores
* Distributors
* Reseller "

-http://www.npd.com/corpServlet?nextpage=retail-tracking_s.html-