Smartphone security sphere to reach $5 billion by 2011

Market analysts foresee boom in mobile threats and security market.

UK-based telecoms analyst Juniper Research has released a report predicting a steady rise in attacks on smartphones over the next five years, with an accompanying increase in the size of the market for mobile security software.

The study into likely future trends in the mobile market foresees security products installed on 247 million mobile devices by 2011, generating revenues of $5 billion for security product vendors. Some 40% of these products will be in the 'secure content' sector, including anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and content filtering software. The market for mobile encryption services is expected to outpace that for PC-based encryption.

With mobile devices outselling PCs by five to one at the moment, they are fast becoming a popular target for hacking, scams and extortion, another trend which is predicted to continue as smartphones increase in sophistication and market penetration.

Juniper Research's announcement of the findings is here, while the full study can be purchased from this page.

11 December 2006

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