Cisco and Palo Alto Networks were singled out for single-vendor secure access service edge (SASE) platform segment growth during the first quarter of this year, growth that Dell’Oro Group found helped boost the overall SASE space.

Dell’Oro Group reported that global SASE revenues increased 17 percent year-over-year during Q1, hitting total sales of $2.6 billion for the quarter. The growth is feeding what the analyst firm had previously predicted would be a $17 billion market by 2029.

The most recent report found that single-vendor SASE platform deployments increased 21 percent year-over-year during the quarter, which Dell’Oro Group tied to enterprises wanting “more straightforward purchasing, tighter policy management, and lower operating costs made possible by tightly integrated next-generation SD-WAN and cloud-security platforms.” This pace vastly outperformed the three percent year-over-year sales increase posted by multivendor SASE platforms.

Single-vendor SASE platforms tie together SD-WAN and secure service edge (SSE) systems from a single provider. This is touted as providing a more uniformed and cohesive platform compared to multivendor architectures that can invite more complexity; however the single-vendor model does remove cost flexibility.

Dell’Oro Group found SD-WAN revenues climbed 21 percent year-over year in Q1, with Cisco noted for gaining “seven share points” backed by its Catalyst 8000 and Meraki platforms. Cisco this week also refreshed its SASE product line in what one executive called the vendor’s “biggest refresh” of the past decade.

The SSE space posted a 15-percent year-over-year increase in revenues, with Palo Alto Networks noted for outgrowing “the segment fourfold with a 44-percent leap.” Palo Alto Networks has also recently packed on a number of telecom operator-focused SASE deals.

Single-vendor SASE surge

Gartner last year predicted that 65% of new SD-WAN purchases by 2027 will be part of a single-vendor SASE offering, a significant rise from the 20% it expected in 2024. Gartner said the client interest in single-vendor SASE has more than doubled compared to the previous year and it estimates there are more than 10,000 organizations using a vendor’s primary single-vendor SASE offering.

“The market for well-architected single-vendor SASE offerings is dynamic and maturing, and SASE interest among our clients has been growing rapidly,” Gartner noted in its SASE Magic Quadrant report.

Gartner also noted that multiple SASE vendors now have a single-vendor SASE offering but “few offer the required breadth and depth of functionality with integration across all components, a single management plane, and unified data model and data lake.”

Gartner’s research found that the single-vendor SASE market will see new entrants, mandatory generative artificial intelligence (genAI) assistants, and notable price differences based on point-of-presence (PoP) strategies. SASE vendors will also extend their support for unmanaged devices and expand into adjacent markets such as endpoint security, data security posture management (DSPM), microsegmentation, and network access control.

SASE market control

While new entrants are expected, Dell’Oro Group had previously noted that six SASE vendors collectively controlled 72% of $2.4 billion in segment revenues collected during the third quarter of 2024. Those six vendors include Zscaler, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Broadcom-VMware, Fortinet, and Netskope.

Mauricio Sanchez, director of enterprise security and networking at Dell’Oro Group, previously explained that the top-heavy nature of the SASE market is due to growing segment maturity.

“The SASE market is entering a new maturity phase,” Sanchez wrote. “As enterprises focus on trusted, integrated solutions during economic uncertainty, the largest vendors are capturing a growing share of investments, setting the stage for continued leadership and innovation.”