Stonesoft targets SMEs, revamps strategy for India

Venkatesh Ganesh / Mumbai

Network security provider Stonesoft Corporation plans to grow its presence in the Indian market. It has appointed Mumbai-based Tech Asia Solutions (TAS) as its national distributor.

With price erosion, increased competition and saturation in the firewall market, Stonesoft felt the need to partner with Indian vendors in order to get a stronger grip on the Indian SME segment. Benny Wan, sales director, Channels and Strategic Accounts, said, “At present India contributes only 7 percent of our global customer base and we are looking to increase that to at least 20 percent.”

While the company has a reasonably strong presence in other Asian countries, it has not been able to make significant inroads in India. Wan explains, “Our growth rate in countries like Thailand has been as high as 202 percent, whereas in India it has been only 65 percent.”

An interesting thing to note here is that in mature markets such as the US and Japan, this market has plateaued.

A Frost and Sullivan report reckons that the Indian security market stands somewhere in the region of $25 million to $40 million. Firewalls dominate the market (49 percent) followed by anti-virus (40 percent) and intrusion detection systems (6 percent).

On the company’s future plans, Wan opined that the appointment of TAS as its nationwide distributor would increase its footprint across the country. Explains Benny, “So far we were restricted only to the enterprise segment. We plan to concentrate on the SME segment now.” Stonesoft will continue to focus on large enterprises as well.