According to a Mordor Intelligence report published recently, the mobile Anti-Malware market was estimated at $3.42 billion in 2017. It is estimated to grow 18% annually over the next five years to $9.2 billion by 2023. Recently, anti-malware focused player FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE), reported its third-quarter results, which surpassed market expectations.

FireEye’s Financials

FireEye had done well at the start of the year, but during the course of the year, investors lost confidence. FireEye continued to face execution challenges and witnessed slow uptake of its new products and services. It has been blaming the results to its shift to a subscription-based model. But average contract lengths and deferred revenue growth continue to decline, causing anxiety amongst investors. But that appears to be changing now.

Revenues for the quarter grew 7% to $212 million with billings growing 8% to $219 million. Losses narrowed to $50 million, or $0.26 per share, compared to a loss of $69.21 million, or $0.39 per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings came in at $0.06 a share. The market was looking for revenues of $208.4 million, billings of $215.2 million and an adjusted EPS of $0.02 for the quarter.

By segment, FireEye’s Product, Subscription and Support revenues grew 8% over the year to $175.7 million. Analysts were expecting $171.75 million from the segment. Professional services revenues grew 5% over the year to $36 million.

For the current quarter, FireEye expects revenue in the range of $214-$218 million and billings in the range of $245-$255 million. It projected a non-GAAP net income of $0.04-$0.06 per share. The Street was looking for revenues of $216.6 million, billings of $250.8 million, and an adjusted EPS of $0.04 for the quarter. For the current fiscal, FireEye expects revenues of $827-$831 million with non-GAAP net income of $0.06-$0.08 per share.

FireEye’s Product Upgrades

FireEye continued to expand its market reach through product and service upgrades. Where most security companies are one-dimensional, FireEye has been able to create multiple streams of security services including threat intelligence, endpoint security, e-mail security, network security, and malware protection.

As part of this effort, it recently launched MalwareGuard, a machine learning signatureless endpoint protection capability that goes beyond detecting what regular anti-virus (AV) detects. The security solution can detect threats that the AV misses and provides incident responders with the forensic capabilities they need.

It is also upgrading Helix, its cloud-based security platform. Helix helps automate cybersecurity infrastructure by integrating security capabilities into a single cloud solution. It grants its customers access to a single dashboard through which they can detect threats, automate the threat response, generate compliance reports, and manage their cloud infrastructure. To grow Helix, it launched a marketplace to allow third-party developers.

It is also working on integrating Expertise On-Demand directly into its products. Expertise On-Demand service will allow its customers to obtain advance security services such as malware analysis, forensic analysis, or threat intelligence through a single click. It will provide a seamless way for its customers to get access to security expertise at a usage-based price.

FireEye and Facebook

Recently there has been market speculation about Facebook’s desire to buy a cybersecurity firm. The rumors have been fanned by the various data breaches and the exit of its chief security officer in August. Even if Facebook does not acquire, it could very well outsource its security requirements. Many believe that FireEye could be a preferred vendor or an acquisition target. Rivals like Palo Alto Networks will surely be pitching in for the contract. But FireEye has already helped Facebook with data security campaigns in Russia and Iran. Whatever Facebook chooses to do, acquire or outsource, if it does end up with FireEye, it will be a big win for the company.

Its stock is trading at $18.95 with a market capitalization of $3.7 billion. It touched a 52-week high of $20.61 earlier this month. It was trading at $13.40 in November last year. FireEye had listed on the NYSE in 2013 at a valuation of $2.3 billion. Back in early 2014, following its $1 billion merger with privately held security software firm Mandiant, its stock soared to an all-time high of $86 and a market cap of $8 billion.