Recession Fuels Video Security Market
It’s a hot market now, and stands to get hotter as federal stimulus money flows.
By Cecilia Galvinalvin
It’s still an open question whether crime rates increase as the economy worsens, but businesses aren’t taking any chances: They’re turning to video security to shore up their defenses. According to a recent report from analyst firm ABI Research, the video surveillance market, which has slowed in the past year, has nonetheless posted a healthy 10 percent growth rate.
Perhaps not surprisingly, current market growth is fueled largely by retailers and financial institutions. “In fact,” says Stan Schatt, ABI Research vice president and practice director, “some large retailers have increased their deployments to counter recession-induced shoplifting.” The U.S. government is also spending on surveillance for borders, ports, and airports.
The video security market is poised to grow further as our economic fortunes improve moving into 2010–and as government stimulus money starts flowing–says ABI Research. What’s more, the firm forecasts that the total video surveillance market will be worth more than $41 billion in 2014. “Many observers underestimate the size of this market because they only include cameras and network video recorders,” says Schatt. “They ignore all the other facets of video surveillance, which also include other hardware, cabling, and other infrastructure, professional services, and software. When you put all that together, it’s a pretty sizable number.”
Yet the recession has produced a change in the kinds of systems being purchased. While the video surveillance market has been in transition from analog systems to hybrids to IP-based systems, the lower cost of analog technology–especially for companies with a stockpile of legacy analog equipment–means that more analog and fewer IP products are being sold. Growth of IP technology has also been slowed by an ongoing debate over standards. Schatt is fairly confident, however, that when standards issues are settled and the economy shows improvement, IP-based systems sales will grow dramatically.
The research report, Video Surveillance Systems, provides the size of the market and forecast for digital and analog cameras, storage devices, infrastructure equipment, and professional services, along with key vertical markets that are spurring growth such as government, retail, education, transportation, and banking.
