Not just anti-virus, Quick Heal set to benefit from rising demand for security products, says CTO Katkar

So we faced some issues in the first quarter. We got the problem solved and now we will see better growth from the next quarter in the government business.

Enterprise business is doing good. We see a good second and third quarter for the business.

Retail is going to grow for us in single digit because we have seen a lot of saturation in the retail segment. At the same time, a lot of internet penetration is happening, and we do see more potential to move into tier-2 and tier-3 cities where we are increasing our channel partner network.

Q: What do you think of the cybersecurity market in India? Have you managed to change the perception that Quick Heal only sells anti-virus?

A: It is true that when it comes to Quick Heal, people think anti virus. We have been working on enterprise products and SMB products. We saw this thing 4-5 years ago and launched our enterprise products under the brand name Seqrite.

Separate teams look after that business, and we have a different channel network for the enterprise.

We have more than 30,000 customers for Seqrite and more than one million end-points.

As the government streamlines policies for data acquisition and localisation, and data speeds become higher than ever, we see a lot of potential for cybersecurity in coming days.

Demand for security will increase with SMBs (small and medium businesses) getting digital. That’s where we are targeting the Seqrite brand.

Q: From a spending point of view, what kind of organisations are more open to spending on security? Is there an increase in spending with hacks and ransomware becoming a common and mainstream threat?

A: That is a challenge we still face, but more and more industry is ready to spend more on security. People are only aware of certain traditional products for security that they've seen but there are newer technologies available that are more secure.

Cybersecurity spending will become mandatory eventually, that is what we are expecting a demand. Once laws come into force, enterprises will have to spend on data loss prevention, data encryption etc. That is one area where we see revenue increasing.

Q: Do you see the data protection Bill as being a step in the right direction and increasing demand for your products?

A: Yes. Implementation wil be key. Once penalties are set, and an organisation is hacked and if confidential data is stolen, it will become more critical for enterprises to ensure compliance and that is how security awareness will grow.

We are seeing more push from the government towards making themselves secure, and encouraging use of Indian products. That will help Quick Heal and Seqrite to make inroads in the government departments.

Q: What is the focus in the current quarter and year?

A: We have new products planned for retail as well as enterprise. One is an enterprise product we will launch in the next two quarters-to protect your entire smart home. One is on the mobile front.

Our observation is that whenever we launch a product it takes partners two three quarters to understand and for demand to start coming in.

Q: Is there an attempt to provide security for voice-based products which are also used in smart home devices?

A: We don’t consider this a separate vertical. In our vertical of home network security which we are planning to launch in our retail vertical, we are providing security for all smart products like Alexa or Google Home.