This report provides a detailed analysis of the Norwegian cybersecurity market's financial performance for the 2025 fiscal year. In an industry often driven by speculation, this analysis is grounded in concrete data, focusing on the hard numbers. New this year: a leaderboard of who leads on each measure, and a view of who has actually gained and lost market share since 2022. Every graph is live at stats.o3c.no.
Disclaimer
To ensure the focus and accuracy of this report, the analysis is limited to companies that derive a minimum of 80% of their income from cybersecurity. This criterion allows for a precise assessment of the specialized market.
Consequently, large, multi-service consultancy firms have been excluded, as their financial statements do not typically separate income and results from cybersecurity services. This lack of specific data would make direct comparisons difficult. Readers are advised to consider this scope when interpreting the report's findings and statements.
The market at a glance
Who came out on top, top three in each category:
The names at the top and the names further down barely overlap. None of the three biggest companies appear in the margin ranking, and none of the three best margins come from near the top by revenue. Size and profitability pull in opposite directions in this market.
Growth of companies
42 companies were still registered at the end of 2025, down from 43. That is the first fall in the series, and it is a mix of companies closing and companies being absorbed into larger groups.The market doubled its number of companies in five years. That has now stopped.
Market income
Income reached NOK 3.72 billion, up 11.7% from NOK 3.33 billion. The five-year average is 15.5%, still ahead of the 8 to 12% you see across Norwegian IT, but down from the 17.5% I reported last year.
Value creation, meaning income minus the hardware and licences companies buy in to resell, grew 16.4%, faster than income itself.
Total market result
Purple bars are profit years, teal bars are loss years. Four losses in a row now, and 2025 is the second deepest at minus NOK 134.6 million, against minus NOK 99.1 million in 2024.
Of the 40 companies, 27 made money and 13 lost money. Five account for NOK 223.9 million:
Omny, minus NOK 63.8 million (OT security software, started 2022)
Telenor Cyberdefence, minus NOK 60.3 million (not a new business, it sat inside Telenor AS before and is now its own company)
Pistachio, minus NOK 55.0 million (awareness training software, started 2022)
Defendable, minus NOK 25.7 million (smaller deficit than previous years)
Sicra, minus NOK 19.0 million (strong results for years, now trying to accelerate growth faster with PE backing, which is most likely what this number reflects)
Take those five out and the rest of the market made NOK 89.2 million.
The numbers indicate that there is no sector-wide profit crisis, there is a small group with investor or parent-company money behind them trying to buy positions fast, and their spending is big enough to bury everyone else in the total. Three are software companies, where years of building before revenue is normal.
Market share
Plain market share flatters resellers. A company that buys hardware for 80 and sells it for 100 books 100 in income but has only added 20. Taking the cost of goods out shows the real business underneath. Grey is the share of income, purple is the share of value creation.
Mnemonic leads on both, 30.2% of income and 29.6% of value creation. That it barely moves tells you its size is real delivery, not boxes shipped. It is down from roughly 35.9% in 2020.
NetSecurity is the opposite: 22.5% of income but 13.6% of value creation, the biggest gap on the chart. Promon goes the other way, 7.5% up to 11.6%. EMP Secure is at 9.0% and 8.0%.
The top three hold 61.6% of income between them, the top five 73.6%. On the adjusted basis the market is worth NOK 2.37 billion rather than 3.72.
Who actually took market share
NetSecurity took 14.5 percentage points, which can likely be attributed to the acquisition of Data Equipment. Promon added 2.9 on its own. Kommando 1.1, Defendable 0.9, O3 Cyber 0.9, Ivolv 0.7. On the other side, Mnemonic gave up 3.4, Orange Cyberdefense Norway 2.2, Advisense 1.4.
Results and profit margin
Biggest profits in kroner: Promon NOK 32.7 million (up from 22.9), Mnemonic NOK 20.4 million (down from 57.5), Kommando NOK 17.8 million (up from 10.1), NetSecurity NOK 17.6 million (up from minus 3.9), Junglemap NOK 14.7 million (up from 6.3).
On margin the top runs Binary Security 31.9%, Junglemap 29.1%, O3 Cyber 19.0%, then Kommando, FM Cybersecurity, Xlent Cyber Security and Promon in double digits. Not one is a full-service provider. Mnemonic came in at 1.8%, NetSecurity 2.1%, EMP Secure 2.7%.
Full-service is a volume business at volume-business margins, competing on breadth and contract size. Specialists run several times higher on a fraction of the revenue.
Salary and compensation
Average gross salary was NOK 1,040,087 per FTE, up 3.0%. That is the average of each company's own figure across the 30 companies with five or more FTE.
Houmb tops the chart at NOK 1,476,907, then O3 Cyber at NOK 1,466,217 and Gritera Security at NOK 1,452,283. The firms at the top run senior-only or close to it, with no junior tier pulling the average down. Bigger organisations mix graduates, mid-level and principals and land nearer the middle: Mnemonic NOK 937,688, NetSecurity NOK 1,062,362, EMP Secure NOK 818,263.
Two things the chart leaves out: options and other non-cash pay, which understates the total at the venture-backed software companies, and consultants hired through other companies, who do not appear at all.
The 3.0% is measured across the 23 companies clearing the threshold in both years, so it compares like with like.
Value creation per employee
Income minus what you bought in, divided by headcount. It answers a simple question: how much does each person here actually bring in?
Promon leads at NOK 4,215,914, then Junglemap NOK 3,177,107 and O3 Cyber NOK 2,998,623. The middle of the pack is NOK 1,726,427, so the top is running at more than twice the typical company. Promon is up NOK 610,000 in a year, which is software doing what software should: revenue rising without headcount rising with it.
The interesting names near the top are the consultancies. O3 Cyber at NOK 3.0 million, Houmb at NOK 2.7 million and Kommando at NOK 2.6 million. They get there through seniority, low admin overhead and high billable utilization.
The big full-service providers sit at NOK 1.8 to 2.1 million. Mnemonic NOK 2,031,280 across 346 FTE, NetSecurity NOK 2,120,576 across 152.
At the bottom are the growth-stage software companies: Secure-Nok NOK 318,000, Secure Practice NOK 738,000, Omny NOK 742,000, Pistachio NOK 823,000. All four are pre-scale.
Across the market, NOK 2.37 billion of value creation against NOK 1.30 billion in wages. Wages take 54.9%.
Headcount
1,255.6 FTE in 2025 against 1,185.1 for the same 40 companies a year earlier. Up 70.5 people, or 6.0%, while value creation grew 16.4%.
Biggest employers: Mnemonic 346, NetSecurity 152, EMP Secure 103, Telenor Cyberdefence 77, Defendable 69, Promon 65.
Gritera Security went from 4 to 17 FTE, more than tripling while staying profitable at NOK 1.9 million and paying the third-highest average salary in the market.
Orange Cyberdefense Norway cut 19 FTE, down 29%, and still posted a NOK 17.9 million loss on NOK 169 million of income. Value per employee rose from NOK 1.47 to NOK 1.76 million.
Final thoughts, and what I expect in 2026
The usual line about this market is that everyone is growing and nobody makes money. The accounts do not say that. 27 of 40 companies made money, the specialists are running double-digit margins, and the loss sits in five companies that are spending on purpose.
Three things I expect next year.
AI pushes demand up, but only for the firms that can deliver on it. Companies are putting AI into production faster than they are securing it, and that gap has to be closed by someone. Plenty of firms will say they do this work. Far fewer can actually do it, and that is where the money will go.
The big providers stay on thin margins. Mnemonic at 1.8%, NetSecurity at 2.1% and EMP Secure at 2.7% are not one-off numbers, they are what breadth costs. Nothing in these accounts suggests that changes in a year.
Growth picks up again. I think 11.7% is closer to a floor than a trend. Value creation already grew 16.4%, well ahead of income, so the underlying work is growing faster than the invoicing suggests. Add AI demand on top and 2026 should land above 2025.
2025 was the year this market stopped growing at any cost. 2026 should be the year it starts growing again, and the companies that spent the last two years building something real are the ones set up to take it.
About this analysis
All figures come from Brønnøysundregisteret and the companies' filed annual reports, and are kept live at stats.o3c.no, where you can explore every graph across all years, filter by company, and subscribe to be notified when new numbers land.
If you spot an error, a missing company, or you disagree with a read, I want to hear it. This dataset gets better every year because people tell me what I got wrong.