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The privately-held Moscow-based company has plans to reach beyond its stronghold in Russia and Europe to hit the US and China markets next year.

Doing so 'will require additional investment,' said CEO Natalya Kaspersky. She said that such funding could come from outside investment or even an IPO.

'Maybe next year, that could be a possible scenario,' she said.

The company already has a 70 per cent market share in Russia and a growing presence in Europe. Sales Director Simone Cools said that the China operation was established earlier this year in partnership with an existing government-backed organisation. This will become a joint venture. Next year will also see the company opening its first US office.

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Kaspersky has also launched a separate product and brand called Info Watch. It offers bespoke solutions to creating and enforcing a security policy that defines what data resources employees are able to access and what they can do with it.

As such, the consulting required makes it an expensive product suited more to the enterprise rather than the SME market where Kaspersky is traditionally strong. Subsequently though, the antivirus product will be able to piggy back Info Watch to capitalise on its enterprise customers.

Kaspersky itself will remain focussed on its software products. Its antivirus engine is used by the likes of MessageLabs in its managed service and by Tumbleweed in the appliance sector. But Natalya Kaspersky said there are no plans to enter these markets with its own offerings.

'Appliances are growing very rapidly at the moment,' she said. 'We thought about whether we wanted to go into that ourselves, but decided we didn't want to get into that fight.' She added there's still no sign of the boom that was predicted for managed services happening.