Symantec Corporation is a leader in cloud and on-premise security and a trusted provider of advanced threat and information protection to thousands of businesses worldwide.
Founded in 1982 and launched internationally from its Mountain View, California, home base in 1987, the corporation has risen to prominence due to its expertise in the fields of security and information management as well as its slew of high-profile clients.
In addition to a successful IPO in July 1989, the company has received 1.2 billion USD in both pre- and post-IPO funding rounds, the last of which was led by Starboard Value in 2018 and generated 670 million USD for the company. This funding has supported 72 strong acquisitions over the business’s lifetime, including Verisign's Certificate Authority business and Lifelock as well as the addition of 2,740 patents, the bulk of which are in the “Computing; Calculating” category.
Following several prominent mergers over the course of its history, including with Peter Norton Computing in 1990, Symantec Corporation underwent a significant demerger in 2015 to split its security and information management capabilities into two publicly traded companies: Symantec Corporation and Veritas Technologies Corporation.
This decision enabled both business units to leverage their global brand reputation while doubling down on specific areas of business support, namely securing the web’s digital infrastructure as well as targeted informational support at the enterprise level.
Since 2012, Symantec Corporation’s reputation has suffered from a series of high-profile security issues involving its Verisign product, malware attacks and patent infringement suits as well as internal hacking scandals alongside several prominent leadership changes.
Most recently, however, the company’s fortunes have fared much better. This is reflected in the disclosure of GAAP revenue of 4.731 billion USD for its 2019 fiscal year earnings, which helped bolster market confidence. Similarly, Symantec’s public support for diverse causes and initiatives as well as its supportive attitude toward employees helps to garner the brand mostly positive reviews relative to its peers.
Symantec Corporation helps customers secure their confidential information and data thanks to an open, integrated and well-rounded suite of products and services.
With a legacy of over 30 years of innovation as well as acquisition of several leaders in the field of cyber defense, advanced threat protection, information protection and security, Symantec has shown itself capable of adapting to and weathering many of the challenges faced by the digital security industry to date.
Today, the company provides a competitive global offering that is attracting attention from the press and industry alike, particularly for its cybersecurity division’s strong quarterly results and Managed Endpoint Detection and Response (MEDR) platform, launched earlier this year.
This solid background, paired with Symantec’s resources, helps the company to continually innovate and remain competitive in the wake of rapid changes to the cybersecurity industry and challenges for customers of every size.
Symantec is well positioned to take advantage of surging demand for cloud and on-premise data security solutions around the world.
The International Data Corporation (IDC), for example, reports that the market for data protection and recovery software is expected to continue growing through 2022, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.7% for 2018–2022.
Meanwhile, businesses were predicted to spend over 114 billion USD globally on cybersecurity products and services in 2018, according to Gartner. This trend is set to continue in 2019, with the market for these kinds of services expected to grow 8.7% to 124 billion USD based on the same report.
At the same time, Symantec’s own research into cyber safety insights, released earlier this year, highlights growing demand among consumers for digital safety measures: 84% are proactively looking for solutions to manage the safety of their online data.
With a breadth of solutions for consumers and businesses alike, Symantec’s outlook appears positive. The corporation is primed to take advantage of these opportunities to secure continued growth well into the next decade.
Efforts by the Symantec Corporation to address lapses in investor confidence as a result of proposed acquisitions in 2018 and a string of technical issues in the past decade have led to a positive investment prognosis in 2019.
As the market for the company’s products continues to grow among both consumers and businesses, the future is bright as long as Symantec continues to capitalize on innovation and its strong global presence, particularly in emerging markets such as LATAM.
This report was produced by Intricately, a data insights company based in San Francisco, CA. Intricately provides detailed insights into more than 7 million businesses worldwide and intelligence into product usage of more than 21,000 cloud products.
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The data in this report is provided by Intricately’s proprietary Global Sensor Network, which draws on five years of in-house innovation and collects public data about digital product usage, applications and traffic.
Intricately is not in-line (from a traffic perspective), nor do our customers provide us with usage data. As a result, Intricately is able to monitor public products and infrastructure, including the public components of on-premise and firewalled products.
Intricately has conducted an analysis of Symantec Corporation’s Cloud (formerly Message Labs) product and wider product suite, which includes its Web Application Firewall (WAF), Anti-Spam Solution and Norton AntiVirus solutions.
This report analyzes data from 41,919 total Symantec customers, the majority of whom are EMEA-based start-ups (especially for Symantec Cloud) and mid-sized companies.
Interestingly, however, while Symantec Cloud’s customer base is particularly EMEA-centric, Intricately’s analysis reveals the company’s wider suite of products is, on average, used predominantly by businesses in North America and the Asia-Pacific region.
Many of Symantec’s customers use AWS services over other leading web service providers:
Conversely, the relatively small percentage of Symantec customers who typically deploy big data applications (1.23%) and machine learning (0.21%) reflects the business’s customer base relative to specifically Cloud customers.
Symantec’s top enterprise customers comprise some of the biggest and most respected global brands.
Top Symantec Customers
Intel
American Express
Major League Baseball
CNET
Canon
Staples
Barclays
Despite these clients however, Symantec’s suite of products, which has seen traffic growth of 12% year over year (YoY), are mostly used by start-ups and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). This may help to explain why less than 5% of its customers spend more than 100,000 USD per month.
Meanwhile, Symantec Cloud, which has seen traffic grow by 16% YoY, has attracted a significantly higher proportion of mid- to enterprise-level customers. However, only 5% of these customers spend over 100,000 USD each month, which indicates significant upsell potential.
Intricately’s analysis shows that Symantec Corporation has built a strong footprint relative to its competitors in North America and EMEA, although Trend Micro has established a clear lead in the Asia-Pacific region and is also doing well in the US, notably among SMB businesses.
At the same time, 32% of Check Point’s customer base is located in EMEA, while Sophos’ cybersecurity solutions are attracting similar numbers of customers in Europe as in North America.
While Symantec dominates among start-ups, Check Point is doing especially well at capturing many enterprise clients relative to the competition. These clients, in conjunction with its balanced portfolio across the business classes, suggest that Trend Micro is well-cushioned in the event of any economic downturn relative to its peers in the cybersecurity space.
At the same time, Trend Micro has garnered an especially strong base of SMB customers, who constitute 5% more of Trend Micro’s base when compared with Symantec’s.
Focusing on the email security portion of Symantec’s product offering reveals that the company is doing particularly well in this field relative to its peers, although Trend Micro Email has acquired a larger proportion of customers in EMEA (5%).
Comparatively, Symantec Cloud shows weak performance in both email and overall in the LATAM region, indicating an area of opportunity.
Meanwhile, Symantec Cloud’s customers are mostly start-ups and SMBs, which may account for the small number of high-value accounts.
Finally, Symantec Corporation’s Cloud products earn an average of 4.2 out of 5 from customers in G2Crowd’s 2019 provider comparison rankings, though its Storage Protection solution earns a lower score (3.8) for the volume of software updates. This is in line with the competition.
Overall, Intricately’s analysis shows that Symantec’s long-standing reputation in the field has earned the corporation’s suite of products, and more specifically, its cloud solution, a strong following among start-ups and SMBs, particularly in North America and EMEA.
However, the data reveals strong opportunities to grow customers and spend at the mid- to enterprise-level. There is still significant room for growth in the LATAM market, while the success of Symantec Cloud in APAC relative to its other products suggests opportunities for further growth in product adoption in this region.
Attracting a more diverse base of enterprise- and mid-level customers like competitor Check Point will also help Symantec Corporation grow sales revenue. Meanwhile, catering to the public’s increasing demand for personal cybersecurity solutions represents an area of untapped opportunity.
Intricately monitors the adoption, usage of, and spend on 21,000 distinct cloud products and analyzes their usage by more than 7 million companies worldwide.
Using its proprietary Global Sensor Network, deployed in more than 150 points of presence (PoPs), Intricately has a comprehensive view of how organizations deploy, utilize and invest in its digital products and applications,
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