The Greater China MSS market maintained its double-digit growth of 18.3% on a YoY basis in 2017. The market was strongly driven by the introduction of new cybersecurity laws and guidelines from local authorities. Stricter compliance has put enterprises under greater pressure to meet specific requirements. More enterprises were looking for third-party experts to manage their security posture for improved cyber resilience.
The evolving sophistication and complexity of threat landscape, be it high-profile volumetric DDoS attacks, ransomware attacks, data exfiltration or cyber extortion, and the increased media coverage of these high-profile cyberattacks, urges enterprises to review their cybersecurity strategy.
At the country level, the adoption of MSS in Greater China region was led by China, followed by Hong Kong and Taiwan. As more enterprises in China recognized the value of MSS, the market experienced the strongest growth in 2017.

The Greater China MSS market is expected to witness a healthy CAGR over the next five years, as enterprises are moving beyond cyber responsiveness to cyber resilience. Within China, BFSI, government, and service providers were the larger spenders on MSS in 2017.

CPE-based services continue to dominate the total MSS market with a market share of more than 70.0% by 2022. This segment is expected to grow at a faster than the hosted segment. HSS is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.1% from 2017 to 2022. The segment grew at a slower pace than the CPE-based segment, as large enterprises were either restricted by local regulatory requirements or the preference to engage MSSPs to supplement in-house security team.

In terms of revenue, Hong Kong remained the second largest MSS market in the region. The HSS segment is expected to grow at a faster pace than CPE-based segment in Hong Kong. As for verticals, BFSI remained the largest revenue contributor of MSS in Hong Kong.

The adoption of MSS in Taiwan remained the lowest in the region. BFSI, government, and manufacturing verticals remained key MSS spenders in 2017. The education vertical was the fastest growing vertical due to concerns over protecting valuable proprietary research data that was being increasingly targeted by cyber criminals.

Looking ahead, enterprises in the region will gradually shift to a more proactive security approach and move beyond traditional reactive perimeter defense mode.

Author: Divya Prasad