Bangalore: US based Palo Alto Networks, a network and enterprise security provider is growing faster with an expanding base of customers in the Indian market, according to company’s top executive.
“We have around 500 customers in India in past 2 years, which are across all verticals and market segments,” said Anil Bhasin, Palo Alto Networks’ Managing Director – India & SAARC, during a recent media briefing here.
“Most of these customers are replacing products and solutions of legacy security vendors and migrating to our offerings,” added Bhasin, who was appointed as top executive of company’s India operations in 2013.

The steady rise in customer base does suggest how Palo Alto Network’s business in India is flourishing, although it doesn’t provide specifics of its business in India.
However, citing IDC study, Bhasin said that company’s growth has been faster than the top four security vendors in India. According to IDC, the global security vendor revenues in first quarter 2016 rose to 5.5% year over year to $2.47 billion, while shipments grew 9.0% year over year to a total of 580,007 units.

As per IDC worldwide quarterly security appliance tracker Q1 2016 data released last month, Palo Palo Alto Networks revenue crossed $300 million and was third on the list of top five vendors, just after Cisco ($429 million) and Check Point ($342 million). In terms of market share, Palo Alto Networks was up from 9.3 percent in Q1,2015 to 12.4 percent in Q1, 2016 and it grew over 40 percent during that period as per IDC data.Company is moving fast enough to close in the gap between its two close competitors Cisco and Check with market share of 17.4 percent and 13.8 percent respectively.

“Since entering the top 5 in the Q2, 2013, Palo Alto Networks has consistently grown its revenues faster than the overall market. In 1Q15, Palo Alto Networks grew its revenue 54.3% year over year with a net gain of 2.9 share points when compared to the same quarter a year ago,” IDC said in a note.
“We are trying to shift the market and are not seen as OEMs but security partner of customers. Our aim is to provide solutions with embedded security,” noted Bhasin.
One of the main reasons why customers are migrating to Palo Alto Networks, according to Bhasin has been the open approach with tech alliance partners that complements helps to address business issues of customers .
In terms of technology alliance to provide integrated security solutions to customers, Palo Alto Networks has a long list of partners including VMware, Citrix, Aruba, Arista, RSA, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and more.

It provides both on-premise and cloud based security, which addresses the hybrid model needs largely followed by most organizations and enterprises in recent times.
Although, Palo Alto Networks was a late entrant in the Indian market, which is largely dominated by established security vendors like Cisco, Juniper, Check Point, Fortinet and others, but it has significantly successful in penetrating this market.
Company had initiated its operations in 2013 with less than five staff but since than it has expanded its base considerably. Today, it has over 30 employees which include experienced sales and support team, five offices across the SAARC region, RMA (Return Material Authorization) depots and TAC (Technical Assistant Centre) in Chennai.
Besides, Palo Alto Networks’ growth is also driven by its 100 plus partners and over 200 certified engineers to serve the customers across the Indian market. Compared to competitors, company largely focuses on prevention strategy using automation and integration approach to strengthen security offering. “Customers want prevention of threats but in an automated way. Our 95% APIs are open, which allows them to get embedded into customer environments,” informed Bhasin.
It claimed to be the only security vendor with a Layer 7 architecture, which enables the company to block threats right at the platform layers and defunct them. Also it leverages the self-learning mechanism to address unknown threats.
Overall, the NYSE listed firm provides security cover to customers — right from networks to end-points.
“We make security as a strategic imperative through integration of technology, people and processes,” concluded Bhasin.