The Market Dynamics Behind SASE Companies: Why Fortinet's Unified Approach Matters in 2026

Competitive Landscape: The SASE Companies Race Heats Up

The SASE companies market has become increasingly fragmented, with vendors pursuing vastly different architectural strategies. Zscaler operates as a pure cloud-native provider, delivering all SASE functionality exclusively through cloud infrastructure, making it attractive for organizations already committed to cloud-first models. Cisco, meanwhile, assembled its SASE capabilities through a series of acquisitions, notably the SD-WAN specialist Viptela, resulting in a multi-component architecture that requires integrating separate products.

Fortinet has taken a distinctly different path by building SASE atop FortiOS, a single unified operating system that natively combines next-generation firewalling, SD-WAN capabilities, and full SASE functionality. This architectural choice yields significant practical advantages: enterprises can deploy complete SASE solutions within minutes rather than weeks, substantially reducing implementation complexity compared to competitors requiring multi-product integration.

Beyond Cloud-Only: Sovereignty and Flexibility Drive Adoption

What truly sets Fortinet apart among emerging SASE companies is the Sovereign SASE offering—a capability allowing government agencies and large enterprises to maintain infrastructure within their own data centers while maintaining full SASE protection. This addresses a critical market segment that cloud-only competitors fundamentally cannot serve due to their architectural limitations. Organizations with stringent data residency requirements or regulatory mandates now have a viable option.

The hybrid deployment model also leverages Fortinet’s enormous installed base. With nearly one million firewall and SD-WAN customers already deployed, the path to upselling SASE functionality to existing accounts becomes far more straightforward than customer acquisition from scratch. The FortiCloud infrastructure backend further strengthens this value proposition by reducing total cost of ownership by approximately one-third versus competing solutions—a compelling financial argument in enterprise procurement cycles.

Growth Momentum: The Numbers Tell an Interesting Story

By Q3 2025, adoption metrics revealed accelerating momentum. Large enterprise SASE penetration reached 15%—a notable figure that masks the velocity: this represents 55% growth compared to the prior period. More strikingly, FortiSASE billings exceeded 100% year-over-year growth, while the unified SASE business overall accounted for 26% of total company billings.

For 2026, analyst consensus points to Fortinet revenue reaching $7.48 billion, representing 10.8% year-over-year expansion. Earnings per share estimates stand at $2.89, implying 7.3% growth. However, the company’s stock has declined 21.2% over the past six months, underperforming the broader technology sector’s 21.3% gain and the security industry’s 9.1% decline.

The Valuation Question and Execution Risk

From a valuation standpoint, Fortinet trades at a price-to-book multiple of 84.25, substantially exceeding the sector average of 10.79, suggesting premium pricing relative to asset value. The real question for 2026 centers on whether continued SASE adoption—particularly the conversion of firewall and SD-WAN installed base—can justify this valuation through accelerating revenue and margin expansion.

The challenge remains converting existing customers to SASE while managing typical enterprise sales cycles and budget allocation pressures. SASE companies that can demonstrate clear ROI and rapid deployment timelines will capture disproportionate market share. Fortinet’s architectural simplicity and cost advantages position it competitively, but execution matters more than strategy in determining whether 2026 becomes an inflection year or merely another quarter of moderate progression.