According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker, vendor revenue in the overall security appliance market grew 9.7% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2021 (4Q21) totaling more than $5.8 billion and representing a $515 million increase compared to the same quarter in 2020 (4Q20).

Security appliance shipments increased 9.2% year over year in 4Q21 to more than 1.5 million units. A security appliance is any form of server appliance that is designed to protect computer networks from unwanted traffic.

Each of the product categories within the security appliances market – Unified Threat Management (UTM), Content Management, Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP), Traditional Firewall, and Virtual Private Network (VPN) – delivered positive results in 4Q21. The UTM category had the fastest year-over-year growth in the quarter at 12.3%.

“Even though supply chain issues had varying degrees of impact among security appliances vendors, the market continued its healthy performance during the last quarter of 2021 and security appliances are expected to maintain their relevance within security strategies designed to protect hybrid IT ecosystems,”

said Carlo Dávila, research manager, Worldwide Enterprise Trackers at IDC.

Regional Highlights

When observing the regional performance across the globe, the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region led the way with 13.7% year-over-year growth in 4Q21, followed by the Asia/Pacific region with 10.4% growth. The combined Americas region (USA, Canada, and Latin America) accounted for 40.7% of the worldwide security appIiance market revenues in 4Q21, with Latin America showing the fastest revenue growth of 9.4% in the quarter.