Global cybersecurity vendor manages to maintain positive dynamics despite a turbulent year
Kaspersky Lab grew sustainably in 2017 and increased its global unaudited IFRS revenue by 8%*, to a total USD 698 million*. While the second half of 2017 was challenging for the company due to geopolitical turmoil and unfounded allegations, its customers and partners keep demonstrating trust, resulting in a successful year for the business.
The growth was driven by the strong performance of Kaspersky Lab’s B2B business (+13%**): the company saw growth of 30%** in the enterprise segment, 61%** in non-endpoint, and 41%** in bookings from cybersecurity intelligence services. Kaspersky Lab continues to expand its portfolio, introducing and enhancing solutions that prevent, detect and respond to the most sophisticated cyberthreats, such as Endpoint Detection and Response and a wide array of professional services. Currently, 69 companies from the Fortune 500 list are Kaspersky Lab customers.
In addition a relatively stable consumer business, pushed by a strong performance in digital sales, contributed to the healthy growth in overall global results.
"Our positive financial results for 2017 are clear proof that users prefer the best products and services on the market and support our principle of protecting against any cyberthreats regardless of their origin. Despite the difficult geopolitical situation, unsubstantiated accusations, and attempts to undermine our business, the company maintains positive dynamics. We are constantly developing and working on new solutions and technologies, and are confident that 2018 will be even more productive than last year," commented Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab.
The geopolitical challenges and unsubstantiated allegations led to a slowdown in the North American market, where bookings decreased by 8%**. Globally, the company’s performance was according to expectations, driven by strong results in other regions, such as Latin America (+18%**), Russia and CIS (+34%**), META (+31%**) and APAC (+11%**). Japan demonstrated moderate growth (4%**), while Europe was slightly below expectations (-2%**).
To address potential questions and concerns that customers and partners might have regarding Kaspersky Lab’s products, solutions and operations in light of the current geopolitical challenges, the company recently launched a Global Transparency Initiative. This highlights Kaspersky Lab’s commitment to trust, transparency, and accountability throughout its 20-year history. The Initiative will include an independent review of the company’s source code, software updates and threat detection rules; an independent review of internal processes to verify the integrity of the company’s solutions and processes; three transparency centers by 2020 in Asia, Europe and North America.; and increased bug bounty rewards up to $100k per discovered vulnerability in Kaspersky Lab products.
* figures rounded for easier reading. Growth was 8.252%, Revenue 697.51 million
** all segment and regional figures are in net sales bookings, not revenue
