Channel sales of software-as-a-service (SaaS) cybersecurity products stood out in the first three months of 2021, with network and endpoint security revenues picking up at the start of April.
The Context Weekly Revenue Trend Index compares current performance against a baseline value of 100 derived from an average four weeks in 2019.
In sales of security products, it shows Europe’s top five markets staying below the baseline for most of Q1 2021.
However, while endpoint security sales through distribution fell -21% and network security sales dropped -12% year-on-year in Q1 2021, cloud security spending increased by nearly 11% during the same period. This could be due to the work-from-home trend during lockdown, with employers investing in SaaS offerings to ensure their remote working employees and devices stay protected.
In terms of individual countries, France (+41%) had the strongest start to the year in terms of SaaS security spend, with the UK (+14%) and Italy (11%) also performing well. Revenue in Germany remained flat during most of Q1, although it is expected to bounce back over the coming months, while in Spain there was a -27% drop-off.
Outside of the top five markets, special mention goes to Netherlands (41%), Belgium (78%) and Sweden (66%) which all recorded impressive Q1 year-on-year growth in SaaS security.
Within the cloud security space, the strongest year-on-year growth went to data loss prevention (138%), control management (98%), mail security (27%) and network security (20%) in the first three months of 2021.
Aside from mail security (-22%) all of these segments also recorded impressive growth compared to the same period in 2019, which had a higher revenue base. Control management notched a revenue increase of 316%, network security hit 68% and data loss prevention grew 67% from Q1 2019.
As one of the largest product segments already, control management is driving impressive momentum in the SaaS security market.
“The rise of control management can be viewed in the context of the year-long shift to mass remote working across the region, and corporate investments in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (Paas) offerings,” explains Joe Turner, manager for research and business development at Context.
“There’s likely to be continued investment across all areas of cybersecurity given the escalation in threat activity, especially ransomware targeting healthcare organisations and public institutions already overwhelmed by the workload from Covid-19.”
James Munroe, UK channel director for Trend Micro, comments: “We have seen a big spike in demand for SaaS cybersecurity across all industries over the past 12 months.
“The desire for a SaaS platform that detects threats and allows for better visibility and flexibility, together with the freedom that consumption based models provide, was already strong. The Pandemic and changes in the way we work has accelerated this 10- fold.”