EC News DeskKaspersky delivered stable business growth in 2020 and increased its global unaudited IFRS revenue to a total of 704 million*, representing a 3% YOY increase*. During a year filled with challenges associated with the pandemic, the company demonstrated positive results protecting users’ privacy and helping businesses mitigate cybersecurity risks amid increased digitalization. Globally, the company’s performance was driven by stable and positive results in most of the regions, in particular in the Middle East (14%)
Along with an accelerated transition to the digital world and an online mode of working in 2020, the need for cybersecurity increased for many organizations. Kaspersky has been continuously working on delivering some of the best products and services in the industry to ensure protection of its customers across the globe and achieved significant success in both the B2B (+13% YOY) and B2C (+4% YOY) sectors. Kaspersky sales results** in 2020 were one of the best in the company’s history.
Kaspersky’s growth in B2B was driven by continued growth in strategic business areas including enterprise (+23% YOY) and non-endpoint (+27% YOY). The company launched new solutions, including Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response (MDR) – a service that ensures continuous, 24/7 machine learning-driven protection, while saving IT security teams’ resources for threat analysis, investigation and response – and also achieved a 10% YOY** growth in B2B digital sales.
In addition, in the SMB business segment, the most affected by the pandemic, the company demonstrated a 3%** YOY growth. This was accompanied by a significant increase in sales of the Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud solution (+80% YOY**). With a special focus on medium-sized businesses’ needs, in the middle of the year Kaspersky released the new Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Optimum (EDR Optimum), tailored for organizations with limited security expertise and resources.
Months of global lockdown caused a profound shift in consumer business, accelerating digital penetration. While the retail market has been significantly impacted by lockdown restrictions that resulted in the decline of tangible sales (-13% YOY), the digital sector of Kaspersky’s B2C sales showed 8% YOY growth. This was driven by impressive double-digit growth in digital acquisition throughout the whole year.
”2020 was a game changer. The way we live, work, shop and socialize with one another has transformed much faster and more unpredictably than we could ever have imagined before the COVID-19 pandemic. We, as a business, also had to adapt to the new reality, and it was our responsibility to enable people to enjoy a safer tomorrow. The company’s operations increased in key business sectors, in particular we are improving considerably in enterprise, enabling businesses in META region to benefit from the best protection and security even in such uncertain times,” commented Amir Kanaan, Managing Director for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Kaspersky.
In 2020, for the eighth year running, Kaspersky has been placed at the top of the TOP3 metric for its comprehensive security portfolio. The company achieved a top three position in 50 out of 62 different independent tests undertaken globally during the year, and achieved first place in 45 of those 62 tests. Moreover, AV-Comparatives awarded Kaspersky’s flagship home user security solution – Kaspersky Internet Security – the Product of the Year 2020 award for a sixth time.
Globally, the company’s performance was driven by positive results in most of the regions, especially in Latin America (+15% YOY), Russia, the Baltics, Central Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)*** (+15% YOY), the META region (Middle East, Turkey and Africa) (+14% YOY), as well as in Europe (+6% YOY). The Asia-Pacific region, which, in terms of business operations, was affected first among all regions by COVID-19, remained flat compared to last year. The same stable result was shown by the North American region, where sales were driven mainly by the digital segment.
In 2020, Kaspersky took a number of significant steps within its Global Transparency Initiative related to prior commitments and beyond. The company has completed the relocation of data processing and data storage to Switzerland. The customer threat-related data shared by users who are based in Europe, the United States, Canada and a number of Asia-Pacific countries**** is now processed in two data centers in Zurich and includes suspicious or previously unknown malicious files that the company’s products send to the Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) for automated malware analysis.
