Internet security giant McAfee announced record revenues during the first quarter of 2009.  Selling huge quantities of their Internet Security 2009 and Anti Virus 2009, McAfee saw revenues of $448 million for the first quarter.  An increase of 21% when compared to the same period of 2008.

Guess this means that the anti-virus marketplace is almost recession proof. As the rest of the economy continues to shrink up, sales of PC security software continues to grow. When people invest $1,000 or so, I guess they want to protect their investment.  With hacking on the rise and new viruses like Conficker, this makes perfect sense and you would be crazy to operate a PC without some type of internet security software.

This isn't good news for everyone though. Symantec, long time king of the hill in this space, is losing ground to McAfee.  McAfee has more than doubled their market share of products preloaded with anti-virus software from 20% to 50%.  This is a huge factor for the growth in revenue McAfee is experiencing.

Some other interesting facts about McAfee's first quarter:

 

• On the corporate side they closed 16 deals of greater than $1 million in value.
• Consumer business represented $172 million of total revenue for the first quarter of 2009.
• North American revenue made up 57% of the total.
• International revenue grew 7%
• McAfee entered into a reseller agreement with HP which will allow HP to sell McAfee's entire suite of products globally.

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Nice to hear some good news and success during a difficult economy.  Hopefully for McAfee, they can keep up with their growth and continue down their successful path. They expect revenue during the second quarter to come in between $455 million and $475 million. Good thing for security flaws in Windows huh?

Tags: business, antivirus software, finance, internet security software