Antivirus Statistics – Trends, Facts and Best Antivirus Software?

Barry Elad

Updated · Oct 10, 2023

Antivirus Statistics – Trends, Facts and Best Antivirus Software?

Introduction

Antivirus Statistics: This technologically developed world is modernizing every single thing available today. Technology has entered healthcare, education, IT, marketing, and many other sectors to increase production capacity. Even computers have become super advanced. But all these things apart, the dark side of the internet is causing damage to these things. It can steal data, leak passwords online, and do many other things to harm the system. Therefore, various antivirus software has come into effect.

In this antivirus statistics, we will have a look at the top 3 antivirus software, general statistics, and its advantages.

Key Antivirus Statistics (Editor’s Choice)

  • Around 50 million people in the United States of America are premium antivirus software users
  • Antivirus statistics state that it takes around 207 days on average to identify the data breach
  • According to antivirus statistics, 47% of mobile antivirus application fails to detect alarming threats
  • 50% of the windows 7 operating systems don’t have any antivirus applications
  • The global market for mobile antivirus software is around $3.4 billion
  • 9% of the people with free antivirus versions were also affected by the malware
  • 49% of the people still don’t use antivirus software
  • Every fifth user has gone through a virus attack on their systems
  • There are a total of 900 million antivirus users around the world
  • According to antivirus statistics, 59% of customers avoid companies that were attacked by cyber threats

What is antivirus?

Antivirus software can be referred to as cyber security software which prevents various types of viruses from entering any electronic devices. Viruses have the ability to harm systems which can cause automatic deletion of data, leakage of data on the internet, slowing down the system, reducing the capability of CPU, and many more things. There are also many severe chances that people may get fooled in money fraud cases in such situations. In order to stop this from happening, antivirus software plays an important role to secure the systems.

Advantages of Antivirus

As the same suggests – Antivirus, there are many positive sides to using such software to secure the system. Let’s take a look around at the advantages of using antivirus software.

  • Antivirus software has the ability to protect the passwords we enter into the system without leaking them to the online world.
  • Various antivirus software is budget-friendly. A very nominal amount has to be paid to install the paid versions on the system.
  • There is much software that has a parental control feature to protect their kids from online scams
  • Antivirus software can detect any malicious website and prevent the user from entering such sites
  • Such software can also clean the cache on the computer, therefore the performance of the system improves
  • Moreover, when external devices are connected, there’s a possibility that they can also contain any kind of virus. Thus, antivirus software can also prevent such types of damage
  • Last but not the least, antivirus software blocks malicious advertisements and spam received from the internet.

Disadvantages of Antivirus

  • There are recurring monthly or yearly subscription rates
  • Frequent software updates can disturb the system as updates require restarting the system
  • It could happen that, antivirus software may show a false positive virus report
  • Some antivirus software takes huge space to download
  • There are many people with bad intentions who sell duplicate antivirus software from original-looking websites
  • Improper updates can cause system crashes

Top 5 Antivirus Software

There is n number of companies around the world providing antivirus software. Following are some top 10 antivirus companies rated by US News.

1. Bitdefender

Bitdefender
Bitdefender has been rated as the top 1 antivirus software around the world. It has 4.2 stars, which is available with more advanced features than any other software in the market.

2. Norton

Norton Antivirus
Norton ranks second in the list of best antivirus software around the world, with 4.1 stars by US news. Norton also shares the features with Bitdefender and states that if Norton fails to remove the virus from any system, they will refund the money back.

3. Kaspersky

Kaspersky Antivirus
Last but not the least, Kaspersky ranks in the third spot in the list of best antivirus software in 2022. Kaspersky’s top paid versions include VPN and ad-blocking features with minimal charges.

4. ESET Antivirus

ESET Antivirus
ESET is also listed as the cheapest antivirus software of 2022 with overall 3.9 stars. It also has advanced features shared with Kaspersky and offers multiple device protection discount options at only $10.

5. Webroot

ESET Antivirus

According to US News, Webroot has 2.8 stars. The performance of this software is outstanding and never affects the performance of running applications.

General Antivirus Statistics

  • 50% of the survey respondents say that antivirus software is extremely useful.
  • On the other hand, 49% of people still don’t use antivirus software
  • 27% of the people who use antivirus software think, such applications are not useful
  • According to antivirus statistics, around 49% of the people in the United States of America have their mobile phones covered with antivirus software
  • Around 50 million people in the United States of America are premium antivirus software users
  • 30 million people use antivirus software as free
  • According to antivirus studies, there are 17% chance that a system will be affected by the virus considering the paid users
  • An average antivirus software costs around $20 to $50 a year
  • The antivirus market is supposed to reach $4.54 billion by the year 2025
  • The first ever antivirus program was called Self-reproduction software
  • Antivirus statistics state that it takes around 207 days on average to identify a data breach
  • In recent months, global spending on antivirus based on cloud computing has already reached $1 billion
  • Talking in numbers around 1.3 billion mobile phones have antivirus software installed
  • The global market for mobile antivirus software is around $3.4 billion
  • Every year, on average an antivirus software costs around $30.
  • In the United States of America, half of mobile phones are protected with antivirus software.
  • Furthermore, Antivirus Statistics 2023 shows that 55% of desktop software around the world is outdated.
  • By 2024, the mobile antivirus security market is expected to be valued at $42.18 billion.
  • 27% of antivirus software users say that these programs are somewhat ineffective.

most-commonly-exploited-application

  • The above chart shows that the most common way for any virus to enter into any system is through office application resulting in 47.15%.
  • On the other hand, Browsers and Android stand with a risk of 23.47% and 20.68% respectively
  • Whereas, Java, Adobe Flash player, and PDF have a minimal number of risks by 5.46%, 2.47%, and 0.78% each
  • In corporations, only 5% of the company folders are exactly secured
  • Antivirus statistics state that 90% of cyber-attacks happen because of human error
  • 52% of cyber attackers always choose the United States of America to attack as a first country
  • 50% of mobile antivirus applications do not serve their purpose
  • 50% of the Windows 7 operating systems don’t have any antivirus applications
  • 80% of laptops are secured with antivirus software the world
  • According to antivirus statistics, 59% of customers avoid companies that were attacked by cyber threats
  • 47% of companies around the world experienced that at least one of their employees has once installed a malicious app
  • 70% of the customers say that businesses are behind in securing their businesses.
  • 91% of the population use antivirus software for general security
  • Whereas 61% of people use such software for security for online shopping
  • On the other hand, 51% of people say that they use antivirus software for job purposes
  • Around 40% of the people who don’t use such software are likely to install it on their mobile phones within the next 6 months
  • In the month of November 2021, around 77% of adults were using antivirus software
  • According to antivirus statistics, 47% of mobile antivirus application fails to detect alarming threats
  • Around 60% of the antivirus software users are male and 45% of the users are female
  • 4% of the users who were using paid antivirus software were affected by malware
  • On the other hand, 8.9% of the people with free antivirus versions were also affected by the malware
  • According to antivirus statistics, 68% of entrepreneurs state that cyber threats are increasing day by day.
  • There are around 77% of people in the United States of America are using antivirus software including mobile devices and other electronic devices
  • Around 5% of antivirus software users change their service providers
  • There are a total of 900 million antivirus users around the world
  • Every fifth user has gone through a virus attack on their systems
  • Various antivirus programs have the ability to detect more than 4,00,000 viruses around the world every day.
  • McAfee, ZoneAlarm, and Kaspersky have the highest rate of detection rate

antivirus-software-market-revenue-worldwide-in-2018-and-2024

  • According to the above chart, in the year 2024, the antivirus market is forecasted to decrease to 3.5 billion compared to the market in 2018 of $270 million.
  • On the other hand, in the year 2021, the global market for antivirus software was valued at $61 billion.
  • The revenue for antivirus software in the year 2021 was 150 billion
  • As per the antivirus statistics, a virus contained with ‘ILOVEYOU’ was reported around $10 billion in damage
  • The antivirus market is supposed to reach CAGR $4.54 billion by the year 2025
  • Antivirus statistics say that hackers attack systems 2,200 times every day
  • In the United States of America, only 50% of mobile phones are secured by antivirus software
  • Antivirus statistics from Avast state that, around the world 55% of the software is outdated
  • By the year 2024, the antivirus market for mobile phones is supposed to be valued at $42.18 billion
  • Around 50% of Android antivirus programs fail to fulfill their purposes
  • Antivirus statistics show that this software can only detect malware attacks at 25%
  • United States of America is always ranked on top for most virus and malware attacks as studies by various antivirus software
  • Pakistan has reported the highest number of attacks on mobile phones
  • On the other hand, Sweden has a low rate of virus and malware attacks till today. Japan stands at 21.8% and the Netherlands at 22.4% with low virus attacks.

  • As mentioned earlier there is a total of 77% of antivirus users are in the United States of America. Out of which 85% of antivirus users are Windows users and 58% of the users are Mac users.

  • The above chart, explains the percentage of people who use free and paid versions of famous antivirus software.
  • Norton has been used by 31% of the paid users and only 7% of free users. Whereas, McAfee has 23% of paid users and 14%
  • Webroot and Malwarebytes have 9% and 7% paid users and only 0.2% and 16% of the free version users respectively.
  • Bitdefender and Kaspersky share the same percentage for paid users at 5%. But differ for free version users by 2% and 1% respectively
  • Microsoft antivirus, ESET, and Trend Micro have around 3%, and 2% each respectively of paid users. Whereas Microsoft has the highest number of free users with 37% but the other two have 0.2% and 0.5% each
  • Sophos home antivirus software has surprisingly no paid users but has 0.2%, free users
  • And other overall antivirus software has around 11% of people use the software with a subscription fee and around 22% of the population has free versions installed on their systems.

Antivirus Statistics by Demographics

(Source: security.org)

Surprisingly, in 2023, more than half of the users in all age groups have antivirus software installed on their devices. Furthermore, 83% of Americans use it on their PCs, 24% use it on their mobile devices and 17% have it on their tablet.

Antivirus Statistics by Reasons to Use Software

(Source: security.org)

According to reports in 2023, the majority of users use antivirus software for general security against malware and viruses (88%) followed by General privacy (59%) and increased security while shopping online (51%).

Conclusion

Nowadays antivirus software is a must-have application on any kind of system. There’s a myth that Mac devices don’t catch viruses. But in reality, it is not true. Because we, humans click anywhere without knowing the authenticity of the website. And that leads to damaging the system. It is not only in the case of Mac, but the same situation can occur in Windows or Linux operating systems. The world is changing and leaping into a more advanced technological world. The dark side of the internet damages everything we have on our systems stored. Therefore, always have one antivirus application installed on the system.

FAQ.

Is antivirus software must for any device?

Yes. Antivirus software protects mobile phones, laptops, iPad, computer, and any other electronical devices from dangerous viruses.

Which antivirus should I install?

One of the most downloaded antivirus software is Bitdefender. But according to the system requirements you can choose any software.

What features does antivirus software has?

Antivirus software can protect your system in all possible ways. It protects your stored data, give access only to authorized persons, prevents data from leaking online, parental control to keep safe children and many other things depending upon the software.

Which antivirus version is better? Free or paid?

To be honest, it is recommended to use paid antivirus software as they provide ultimate security without any drawbacks.

Barry Elad
Barry Elad

Barry is a lover of everything technology. Figuring out how the software works and creating content to shed more light on the value it offers users is his favorite pastime. When not evaluating apps or programs, he's busy trying out new healthy recipes, doing yoga, meditating, or taking nature walks with his little one.

More Posts By Barry Elad