Symantec Set To Ride The Windows 8 Wave With Norton 2013

May 9th, 2012 by Trefis Team
SYMC: Symantec Corp logo
SYMC
Symantec Corp

Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC) has released the public betas for Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security, and Norton 360 software. This suite of Norton 2013 applications was designed to take advantage of the Windows 8 OS which is due for release in late 2012. [1] When installed on Windows 8, the 2013 betas provide security for consumers using Metro apps. The design has been optimized for use on touch systems and supports hardware acceleration for responsiveness. Symantec competes primarily with Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) via McAfee, and Trend Micro and Kaspersky Labs in the security software market.

Check out our complete analysis of Symantec

Windows 8 Advantage for Norton

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Windows 8 is designed to run on both PCs and tablets allowing Norton to deploy the same application on both formats. This opens up a much bigger market for the anti-virus maker.

Symantec’s revenue for the first quarter of 2012 came in lower at $1.68 billion, as slower PC shipments were blamed for lower results. It is speculated that consumers may be waiting for the release of Windows 8 later this year. [2]. We expect a spike in PC sales once the OS is released; however, tablets may offer a greater growth opportunity.

Tablets and smartphones are now the primary tools to access enterprise data, and this is likely to drive the businesses of security software providers if the Windows 8 platform for tablets does take off. Smartphones are expected to grow at a rate of 55% or so and reach annual shipment of one billion phones by 2015, according to research firm IDC. [3]. As tablet and mobile penetration increases, we expect this to become a leading source of revenue for Symantec.

The Norton AntiVirus software constitutes 36% of our current price estimate for Symantec. We estimate the global market for security software is worth $4.72 billion currently and will increase to $6.32 billion by the end of our forecast period.

If the Windows 8 platform is a success and the market grows to $8 billion by the end of this period, we can expect an upside of 10% from our current price estimate. This is likely to happen if the Windows 8 OS based tablets from manufacturers like Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) become a success.

We have a $ 22 Trefis price estimate for Symantec, which is about 40% above the current market price.

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Notes:
  1. Windows 8, www.wikipedia.org [↩]
  2. Symantec To Confirm 4Q Warning On Lower Income, www.ibtimes.com, May 1, 2012 [↩]
  3. IDC Smartphone Growth Estimate, IDC [↩]