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Kaspersky Lab Partner Summit: Quarterly Bookings Top $100 Million
Despite the economic turmoil, antivirus specialist Kaspersky Lab's quarterly bookings have pushed above $100 million for the first time, and annual sales were up 78 percent, according to Chief Operating Officer Eugene Buyakin (pictured, right). Here's the scoop, live from the Kaspersky Partner Summit in Puerto Rico.
The VAR Guy
February 6, 2009
2 Min Read
Despite the economic turmoil, antivirus specialist Kaspersky Lab’s quarterly bookings have pushed above $100 million for the first time, and annual sales were up 78 percent, according to Chief Operating Officer Eugene Buyakin (pictured, right). Here’s the scoop, live from the Kaspersky Partner Summit in Puerto Rico.
During a keynote, Buyakin said he expects Kaspersky Lab to generate $480 million in revenue and $415 million in bookings for 2009 — up sharply from 2008. BBuyakin also described a few IT bright spots within the global economic crisis. Here’s a recap of Buyakin’s keynote:
Sales in developing markets continue to grow
On target customers: Partners should expect large companies to be the biggest IT budget hit. The bigger the budget the bigger the cut
The economic crisis will accelerate acceptance of cloud models. (The VAR Guy fully agrees.)
The Antivirus Industry is less impacted by the economic crisis than other IT sectors. He noted that over the past year, Symantec (stock down 15 percent) and McAfee (stock down 10 percent) have taken a smaller hit compared to the Nasdaq (down 35 percent) and Dell (down 50 percent).
On endpoint security: Two years ago, Symantec had 40% market share, followed by McAfee (17%), Trend Micro (6%) and many others. For 2008, Kaspesky believes it has moved from the “other” slot and has about 4% market share.
Now, the hot data: Kaspersky’s global sales bookings topped $360 million in 2008, up 78% percent year over year, according to Buyakin.
However, Buyakin conceded that Kaspersky’s quarterly bookings did not meet internal goals during a recent quarter or two — suggesting that Kaspersky is growing super-fast, but not quite as fast as expect.
Global headcount now stands at 1257 employees, up 42 percent from 884 in 2007. The R&D team expanded 78 percent, headquarters up 8% and regional offices up 38 percent.
His bottom line: “We outperformed the industry or any of the competitors in terms of revenue and profit growth.”
Hmmm. The VAR Guy wonders: Have Symantec, Trend Micro and McAfee taken notice? Roughly 100 Kaspersky partners sitting next to The VAR Guy certainly have.
As a privately held company, Buyakin says the company can continue to focus on long-term growth strategies rather than short-term quarterly earnings and external pressures from Wall Street investors.
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