Enterprise Security Software Tops B2B Sales

The U.S. B2B indirect software market continues its upward spiral with demand for security software growing faster than overall B2B software sales, according to the latest figures from The NPD Group’s U.S. B2B Software and Cloud Tracking Service. In 2019, the B2B indirect software market grew 6%, from January to May, compared to the same time frame last year.

Diving into the information security software market, the research firm reports that security information and event management (SIEM) software is up 26% year to date (January to May) and the identity and access management software segment was up 18% for the same time period.

NPD Group’s Michael Diamond

“There are a number of factors driving information security software sales, such as firms needing more sophisticated protection as they operationalize big data strategies, the growth of cloud computing – which drives the need for identity access management – and more predictive analytics, which drives the need for SIEM solutions,” said Michael Diamond, director, industry analyst, B2B technology for The NPD Group. “Software sales will continue to be propelled by increasing cybersecurity threats for both businesses and consumers, data center automation, and the growth of hardware-based products, such as next-generation firewalls.”

B2B security software sales experienced a 13% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2016-2018, while non-security software grew at a 9% CAGR for the same time frame. At the end of 2018, security software made up 22 percent of B2B software sales.

While NPD reports that all categories of software experienced growth for the year-to-date period, categories with the largest gains are cloud infrastructure and platform as a service, business applications and security.

At the end of May, NPD reported that the U.S. B2B technology market saw a 6% dollar growth in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the previous year. Again, security software sales saw the biggest gains with both SIEM, and identity and access management software, designated as key growth areas.

The report, by The NPD Group’s B2B Distributor and Reseller Tracking Service, also looked at other technology sales segments. According to those figures, the PC market was up 13%, enterprise storage – including hyperconverged systems – was up 8%, and all-flash arrays saw a gain of 11% during the same year.