How Popular Worldwide Is YOUR AV Application?

A regular reader recently made the point that certain web sites (which are recognized for software reviews), tend to focus on the most popular security applications, seemingly at the expense of security applications that are less well known.

He has a point, I think – visiting some review sites might lead you to believe that the security application marketplace is controlled by a select few major developers. So, is that really the case?

A report released in December 2010, by OPSWAT, which includes data on both worldwide, and North American market share and usage data for antivirus software, might surprise you.

Here’s a few teasers from this report:

The avast! Antivirus product line has helped AVAST Software maintain the title of number one antivirus vendor worldwide with 17.53% global market share. ESET Software and Symantec round out the top three in global market share with 12.05% and 10.04% respectively.

In North America, fifty-three different antivirus companies were detected in this report. Of those fifty-three, five companies combined to control 60.74% of the antivirus market.

While Symantec still controls a large part of the market, trends are moving away from paid antivirus software and towards free antivirus solutions such as those from Microsoft, AVG, and AVAST Software.

Our current data shows that 58% of respondents were using a free solution, confirming our trend noted above when compared to a 42% free solution share as shown in our June 2010 report.

Microsoft’s Security Essentials Antivirus leads the North American Market for individual products with 10% market share, a 2.5% increase since our September 2010 report.

“Free” antivirus solutions also accounted for 3 of the top 4 antivirus products detected globally, as avast! Free Antivirus, Microsoft Security Essentials, and AVG Anti-Virus Free were all available as free downloads.

To view the full version of the report in PDF format, including relevant graphs, go here.

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