Fortinet delivers high-performance management and software-as-a-service (M/SaaS) security solutions that protect networks, users and data from cybersecurity threats.
After its inception in 2000, Fortinet raised 89 million USD through its Series E funding round from investors such as Redpoint and Acorn Campus Ventures. It launched its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in November 2009, which generated 156 million USD for the business.
The company’s strong performance has since led to average annual revenue of around 1.8 billion USD post-IPO and 11 acquisitions.
In addition, Fortinet holds over 570 registered patents in the field of Electric Communication Technique and invests around 200 million USD annually in information technology. These investments have supported the company’s continued growth trajectory in a highly competitive market set to exceed 300 billion USD by 2024 globally according to Market Study Report.
Meanwhile, Fortinet’s prominent reputation in the field of cybersecurity has led the business to become a trusted partner to world governments and organizations, including Interpol and the NSA, in order to safeguard public data and support international criminal investigations.
Thanks to its centralized infrastructure and focus on task automation, Fortinet simplifies the task of securing business data and related vendor management at scale, helping businesses streamline costs and save time.
These benefits and its platform solutions have led to high adoption rates and a strong global demand for Fortinet products, most notably FortiSandbox Cloud. Its comprehensive suite of cloud-based security services has also earned the business recent recognition as a leader in MaaS and PaaS.
In addition, Fortinet’s expansion into third-generation cybersecurity protection through active fabric-monitoring solutions is set to garner the business further headlines as a leader in traffic security, threat detection and trust-based segmentation. This is especially crucial for businesses in the current climate, in which threats at the institutional and enterprise levels are under increasing scrutiny, not only by customers but investors too.
Fortinet’s continued investment in cybersecurity innovation is warranted at a time of exponential growth in the scale and complexity of cybersecurity threats, which pushed businesses to spend over 114 billion USD globally on related products and services in 2018, according to Gartner. This trend is set to continue in 2019, with the market for cybersecurity services expected to grow 8.7% to 124 billion USD based on the same report.
Similarly, since "a third of CISOs feel under pressure as they cannot consume cybercrime intelligence easily or effectively," according to a survey by Kaspersky Lab, demand for comprehensive yet clear solutions with a trusted track record bodes well for Fortinet.
Meanwhile, with financial losses per average impacted company growing 62% between 2014 and Q1 2019 globally, according to MarketWatch, businesses at every level are now choosing to invest in cybersecurity solutions earlier rather than deal with the fallout from attacks.
Fortinet has made several investments in the cybersecurity space since 2014, most recently in HyTrust, as well as numerous acquisitions. This will help the business stay competitive while other key players in the industry, such as Symantec, are following suit as a means of keeping pace with the rapid growth in AI-driven and multipronged cyber attacks.
However, these rounds of consolidation may create financial and strategic barriers for smaller businesses in the space, placing more emphasis on Fortinet’s competitive positioning relative to its enterprise-class rivals.
At the same time, strong demand for cybersecurity software at the SMB to mid-tier level, especially following the European Union’s ratification of region-wide General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), will likely create competition for these accounts in EMEA and NA. Similar growth trajectories at this level in other regions indicate Fortinet would do well to leverage its global footprint to maintain a strong market position.
The data in this report is provided by Intricately’s global sensor network which collects data on digital product usage, applications, traffic. Intricately provides detailed insight on more than 7M businesses worldwide and the product usage intelligence on 21,000+ cloud products.
We are collecting this data from the public internet, we are not in-line (from a traffic perspective), nor do our customers provide us with any usage data. This means we are able to monitor publicly-accessible products and infrastructure. Although increasingly, many on-prem and behind-firewall products have a public component to their product, which our sensors are able to monitor.
Intricately has conducted an analysis of Fortinet’s customer base, which draws on data from its Web Application Firewall (WAF) product FortiWeb, to identify key trends and competitive insights to inform future growth strategy.
This report analyzes data from 4,820 FortiWeb customers who deploy its cloud-based solution to monitor and protect website traffic. This area of the business has grown roughly 16% over 2018–19, a strong performance in the field.
Fortinet’s Fortiweb customers typically oversee a very complex range of web products and applications using a small number of providers:
Meanwhile:
The complicated mix of applications and the scarcity of big-data solutions suggests Fortinet can help its customers improve their ROI on cybersecurity while gaining faster and simpler insights into their performance in this area.
Intricately’s proprietary analysis reveals that the majority of Fortinet’s customers are located in North America, though its market share in other regions, most notably EMEA, is larger than that of competitors like Barracuda Networks.
Similarly, FortiWeb is well positioned in APAC, a market gaining significant traction both at a national level and among local businesses, which experienced 35.9% of the global security threats in the first half of 2018, according to Genmalto.
Fortinet’s FortiWeb customers are predominantly start-ups and small businesses, which account for 91.51% of its sales. These businesses constitute a significantly higher percentage of FortiWeb WAF accounts than do those of its competitors.
Unlike WAF rivals Barracuda Networks and Imperva, however, Fortinet shows significant room for growth among its mid-sized to large accounts. With only 95 enterprise customers in total, these comprise fewer than 2% of FortiWeb’s total sales.
Similarly, while over 50% of Fortinet’s FortiWeb revenue is generated by accounts worth less than 1,000 USD per month, this poses a risk to the business in the event of any future economic downturn, which could hit start-ups hardest.
However, many of FortiWeb’s top customers are well-known global brand names, indicating Fortinet has an opportunity to capitalize on its credentials as the cybersecurity solution powering many trusted institutions.
Furthermore, our analysis reveals that 263 of Fortinet’s existing customers have the potential to spend over 100,000 USD per month on cloud services, a significant upsell opportunity.
Competitive Analysis
Our analysis uncovers strong potential for Fortinet to acquire more FortiWeb WAF customers, particularly among North American start-ups, which account for 55–81% of its competitors’ customers in the region.
Meanwhile, Fortinet has done particularly well in the LATAM and Asia-Pacific regions, significantly outperforming larger competitors to grow a dynamic global footprint.
More customer reviews will be needed in order to evaluate FortiWeb WAF’s overall customer rating relative to its main competitors. However, Cloudflare WAF and Imperva currently garner the most positive reviews in this product category, especially from small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
In particular, these brands earn recognition for their friendly customer service and, as a result, the sense of security they provide to customers.
Fortinet has built a comprehensive suite of cybersecurity products that have earned the company global recognition, particularly among start-ups and SMBs. With its focus on innovation, the business is likely to stay competitive over the medium term.
While the business is still growing, Intricately’s analysis reveals an opportunity to take advantage of FortiWeb’s lead in emerging markets and grow revenue among its existing customer base.
Finally, Fortinet’s well-balanced regional portfolio makes it a potentially attractive acquisition prospect in this time of strong market consolidation.
Intricately monitors the adoption, usage, and spend on 21,000 distinct cloud products and analyzes the usage of more than seven million companies worldwide. Using its proprietary Global Sensor Network, deployed in more than 150 points of presence (PoPs), Intricately has a comprehensive view into how organizations deploy, utilize, and invest in their digital products and applications (click here to see a list of products we monitor).
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Note: The data in this report has been collected via Intricately’s proprietary Global Sensor Network.
7 million companies evaluated
21,000 unique cloud products monitored
