China's network security market chalked up sales of ¥1.782bn (£116m) in the most recent quarter, up 24.3 per cent year on year, according to new research.

CCID Consulting said that security consulting, security management monitoring and grade evaluation have become the important driving forces in the market.

The report added that "frequent accidents" have compelled small and medium sized firms to devote more funds to network security.

Firewalls remain the dominant technology products, but unified threat management, content security management and Secure Sockets Layer virtual private networks are also significant.

Demands from the telecoms, finance and energy industries, as well as government network security services, have grown rapidly, according to the research.

"The conflict between the main industries, and the government's deepening dependency on the network, have increased the number of network accidents, driving the improvement of network security," said the CCID report.

"The demands of provincial network operators, banks, stockjobbers, petroleum, electric power and governments have also driven the rapid growth of network security management consulting, risk evaluation, network security management monitoring, grade evaluation and custom solutions."

The research found that China's network equipment manufacturers such as Huawei are strengthening their offensives into the network security field.

Huawei cooperated with Bain Capital to acquire 3Com Company for $2.2bn on 28 September, and Huawei founded a joint venture company with Symantec in May 2007.

The competition between China's network equipment manufacturers and foreign network equipment manufacturers such as Cisco and Juniper is heating up, and competition is bringing variables to the network security market pattern.

CCID added that the unified threat management market is in its infancy, and that a market leader has still yet to appear.