The fast track to global player status: Internationalization patterns of leading antivirus software companies from CEE

Over the last 30 years, we could observe a steadily increasing number of businesses originating from Central and Eastern Europe that expanded successfully to international markets. Many of those companies operating in traditional industries such as retailing, banking and industrial manufacturing entered neighbouring markets, some even became markets leaders in CEE (Schuh, 2014). Others tried to build a presence in the markets of Western Europe or the world.

That a small group of CEE companies from one business sector, namely the antivirus software market, rose to global player status and stood up to Western competitors is rather rare and makes it worth examining. In August 2021, the global market scores held by Windows anti-malware application vendors were as follows: 3rd Kaspersky, Moscow, Russian Federation (2.28 market score); 4th Bitdefender, Bucharest, Romania (1.98); 8th ESET, Bratislava, Slovak Republic (1.7); 10th AVAST Software A.S., Prague, Czech Republic (1.45). (Statista, 2023).

No other industry in CEE has produced such a high share of global players. And they have not forgotten their roots. Even after three decades in business, their headquarters and core R&D facilities are still in CEE. How did it come that so many firms from CEE made it to the top in this industry? What are the characteristics of this successful internationalization? How do their internationalization paths resemble or differ? These questions have been driving our research. Furthermore, we test which internationalization theory explains those patterns best.