The research house attributed this to Hong Kong's negative GDP growth in 2008 and its maturing IT environment.
The Asia Pacific security market grew at a solid rate of 28.3 percent in 2008, down from 36 percent in 2007, Gartner said.
"This growth is remarkable considering in the fourth quarter of 2008, global economies began to feel the impact of the credit crunch and the global economic downturn," said Matthew Cheung, senior research analyst, Gartner. "Double digit growth in a challenging economic climate confirms that security remains a key priority for Asia Pacific CIOs and IT security leaders."
Data security and privacy, along with the need to protect IT infrastructure from the ever increasing rise in sophisticated and targeted attacks in Asia Pacific, were among the key drivers fueling the growth of IT security software spending, said Gartner.
For organizations operating in mature markets such as Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, compliance was a major driver, the research firm added.
The secure Web gateway (SWG), security information event management (SIEM) and e-mail security market segments demonstrated the highest growth at 48 percent, 31.1 percent and 29.4 percent, respectively, said Gartner.
Consumer security and enterprise endpoint protection remained the two largest sub-segments of the Asia Pacific security market in 2008, totaling US$1.08 billion, the firm added.
In 2008, the largest security markets in Asia Pacific were (in order) China, Australia and South Korea, Gartner said. Achieving over 30 percent growth, the most dynamic countries were China, Indonesia and Vietnam, the company revealed.
As the biggest security market in Asia Pacific, China had the fastest growth of 39.4 per cent, said Cheung, attributing this to the high growth of local security players, such as Rising and Kingsoft, the heavy spending on Olympic Games in 2008 and the rapid increase in foreign investments. Other drivers included the modernization of IT infrastructure and domestic demand in the country, he noted.
The top five vendors including Symantec, Trend Micro, McAfee, EMC, and IBM, held nearly half of the market at 47.8 percent, said Gartner. The combined top five vendors' market share is gradually falling in favor of smaller players, a sign that security remains a dynamic market where smaller players, new entrants and specialist vendors rise to become an effective challenge to the established leaders, Gartner noted.
Symantec continued to be the market leader, accounting for 22 percent of security software revenue in Asia Pacific in 2008, said Gartner. However, the company's market share was down from 2007 when it accounted for 22.8 percent of the market, the research firm added.
McAfee experienced the strongest growth rate among the top five vendors, as its revenue increased 30.1 percent in 2008, said the analyst firm, adding that local players from China exhibited the highest levels of growth in 2008. Other fast-growing vendors in the region included McAfee and Cisco, according to Gartner.
Emerging markets in Asia Pacific are expected to provide the highest growth opportunities over the coming years, although the more mature markets are expected to provide sustainable levels of investment, said Gartner.
Purchasing attitudes point to an increase in popularity in security products delivered as software as a service (SaaS) or as an appliance, particularly for certain technologies such as e-mail security and SWG, the firm added.
Estimates for 2009 predict that security will produce good growth levels,although the full impact of the global economic recession will result in a decrease in spending and the fall of growth rates to around half the levels achieved in 2008, Gartner concluded.