Carrefour named UAE's top seller of anti-virus software

According to Symantec's regional manager for Consumer Sales, Sanjiv Vij, the award is an "encouraging sign" than home users of the Internet are regarding security software as a shopping trolley item. However, he cautioned that home Internet users are still the main target for malicious internet activity, and are still under-protected.

"Symantec conducted a survey among 400 shoppers in Dubai that revealed that only 47% of shoppers had any form of internet security installed on their machines, although more than 80% banked online," Vij said. "Our recent Internet Security Threat Report revealed that 93% of all attacks are targeted at home users. This figure, coupled with the telling figure that 62% of all e-mail is spam, shows that internet security is a problem for every household that possesses a computer."

Norton Internet Security and Norton Anti-Virus were the two top-selling products at Carrefour, with the store growing its revenue in the product by 35% over the previous year.

According to Vij the trend to purchase software security in popular stores is not unique to the UAE. Symantec's top consumer partner in Saudi Arabia is Jarir Bookstore. Jarir and Symantec run the "PC Attach" programme in which Norton Internet Security is bundled with thousands of PCs sold in Jarir's 19 showrooms in Saudi Arabia.

"There is a high level of commitment and creativity in the marketing teams at both store chains, and they are instrumental in increasing visibility of the brand and driving user acceptance," said Vij. "We can say that Jarir Bookstore currently accounts for 40% of our consumer sales in Saudi Arabia, and have grown this aspect of their business by 120% in 2006."