High brand visibility from large security software vendors doesn't necessarily mean that their products dominate the market, according to a new study of security software.
Avast, Avira and AVG lead the way
The study was released on Wednesday by Opswat, whose primary product, Oesis, is a development toolkit used to manage third-party security applications.
Opswat's study focused on what kind of security software users employed, primarily in English-speaking markets.
Opswat gathered the data from Windows users running AppRemover, an application designed to completely uninstall security applications, and Am I Oesis OK?, which can detect whether security applications are compatible with other third-party applications. Both are free tools and have "hundreds of thousands" of deployments, according to Opswat.
Opswat concluded that despite high brand awareness for companies such as Symantec and McAfee, their security software does not necessarily dominate the market in terms of installations.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, free security software suites rule. Forty-two percent of the market is composed of free products, according to the report.
"It would appear that end users have as much faith in the ability of free antivirus applications to keep them as secure as they do paid antivirus," the report said.
Free programs dominated the top four security software deployments, with Avast Free Antivirus at 11.45 percent; Avira AntiVir Personal Free Antivirus, 9.19 percent; AVG Anti-Virus Free, 8.6 percent; and Microsoft's Security Essentials at 7.48 percent.
Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst with Gartner, said the figures are not surprising. Free products are more likely to be popular during a recession, and advanced users looking for other features such as backup and encryption tools will pay for that kind of software.
"I think overall the perception of the free product is that they are good enough products and reliable," Contu said.
Avast's paid antivirus product came in fifth at 5.4 percent, followed by two other paid products, Kaspersky Internet Security, 4.48 percent, and Norton AntiVirus, 4.24 percent.
Vendors that had less than a 0.98 percent market share on their own collectively counted for some 14.38 percent of the total market installs. Only the top four products - all free - had more than 6 percent share.
"It is useful to see the sheer variety of vendors that are occupying a 1- 6 percent antivirus application market share," the report said. "Though in the United States, Symantec and McAfee are often positioned as the top choices, the reality is that competition is alive and well in this highly fragmented sector."
Opswat study said that the true market share of security applications often remains hidden, but that vendors will claim to dominate a market based on their sales numbers versus the reported sales of their competitors.
According to April 2010 figures from Gartner, Symantec led the consumer security software rankings by revenue with about $1.8 billion for 2009. Next was McAfee with $699 million followed by Trend Micro at $278 million.
Comments
sirjohng said: MS Security Essentials just sent down an Upgrade which messed up its own software on both XP and Win7 I had to get MS Support to unravel the mess on my Win7 machine which they did in double quick time All is well now as they have re-issued the Upgrade with an updated version
soulman said: Have you tried removing all traces of some paid for antivirus software from your computer with out resorting to third party software They cling on for dear life
Mike J said: Interestingly CNET reports AVG leads by far in no of downloads amp has for yearsPaid AVs would likely be well-served to drop prices 50
bernard7 said: I had virus bloodhound on my 2nd pc with norton av that could not remove it I downloaded from PCTOOLS a free program that found 275 viruses and removed them including bloodhound say no more
hoppy said: With Microsoft Security Essentials being a half decent anti malware suite and free its hard to understand why people would pay for a premium suiteOther free options combined with a few other small free programs can offer sufficient protection if you set them and your computer up properlyHowever people tend to be lazy when it comes to security and often go for an all in one suite that does everything including expiring after one year