Kaspersky looking to double local sales

INTERNET security firm Kaspersky said helping financial institutions in the Philippines defend their systems and data from threats and attacks is one of its top priorities this year as it targets to double its sales.

“We are now focusing on leaning towards the enterprise market segment. To be specific, we are looking into the financial institutions to be our top focus,” Mary Grace V. Sotayco, territory manager for Philippines at Kaspersky told reporters last week.

She noted that cyber criminals typically target financial institutions.

The company is also hoping to increase its sales in the Philippines this year.

“Hopefully, we will double,” she said.

Kaspersky’s enterprise and the small and medium-sized business (SMB) segments had achieved a “double-digit” growth in the Philippines last year, Ms. Sotayco noted.

“Although we are growing the enterprise segment, which is what we are focusing on, we cannot just deny our SMB market because we can still claim that the growth of the SMB market is continuous. Enterprise projects would take longer. So the approach is strategic,” she said.

Kaspersky’s whole enterprise segment includes its endpoint and non-endpoint security solutions for businesses.

In Southeast Asia, Kaspersky’s enterprise solutions segment hit a “three-digit year-on-year growth” in 2019.

The company posted a “more than double increase” last year on its enterprise solutions segment across the region compared to the 2018 results.

This growth, according to Kaspersky, was driven by the expansion of its business portfolio, especially in “threat hunting, threat intelligence, incident response, and a wide array of professional services.”

Such products and services, it added, are designed to offer “a holistic ‘true cybersecurity’ for companies across Southeast Asia.”

The global cybersecurity company also said that its digital sales ramped up its overall growth in the region.

With the increase, the company said, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar led the region.

The rest of the countries in Southeast Asia logged a “two-digit” growth for their digital sales.

“Our 2019 enterprise results clearly proves more and more enterprise stakeholders in the region believe in our expertise and capability to secure their systems and networks from the most common threats to the most sophisticated attacks,” Kaspersky’s General Manager for Southeast Asia Yeo Siang Tiong was quoted as saying in a news release. — Arjay L. Balinbin