By John Levett

New market forecasts from Juniper Research indicate that currently less than 1 in 20 smartphones and tablets have third party security software installed in them, despite a steady increase in threats from device loss/theft, malwares and viruses. However, the increasing extent to which personal and corporate data is stored on mobile devices and the recognition of the need to protect it will create a $3.6 billion opportunity for mobile security software providers by 2016.

The mobile security opportunities report found that mobile security software is rapidly becoming as essential on a handheld as it is on a desktop or notebook computer. The increasing popularity of smartphones and tablets makes this particularly relevant as many users are now accustomed to accessing e-mails, websites and performing online transactions on the move, thereby storing more and more potentially sensitive data.

Nitin Bhas, the author of the report, stated, “We believe that the market for mobile security products will go mainstream by late 2013 as the vulnerability of data centric mobile devices becomes more widely appreciated both in the business and consumer sectors. High-profile security alerts are likely to heighten the public’s awareness of this growing issue.”

Juniper predicted that just as consumers currently purchase and install Internet security products for their PCs and laptops; they will begin to include mobile devices to the list of electronic devices that they must secure.

Other key findings include:

• Enterprise security market for tablets, smartphones and feature phones will contribute towards 69% of the total mobile security product sales revenue by 2016.

• Juniper believes that as more tablets are brought into the enterprise over the forecast period, the proportion of tablets featuring security product will also increase and will overtake the protected smartphone user levels.

• 277 million mobile devices will have some kind of protection installed by 2016.

The ‘Securing & Protecting a Mobile Future’ Whitepaper and further details of ‘Mobile Security Opportunities: Strategies for Tablets, Smartphones & Feature phones 2011-2016’ can be downloaded from http://www.juniperresearch.com.

About the author

John Levett is PR at Juniper Research, a company which provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.