Calm amid the stormVideo surveillance market maintains 10 percent growth

The global economic downturn has slowed the expansion of video surveillance markets in 2008 and 2009, but they have nonetheless posted a healthy 10 percent growth rate which will accelerate — led by the retail and financial segments — as the economy starts to recover in 2010. In the United States, government funding provided through economic stimulus measures will further reinforce shipments and revenues. “People and organizations are still buying video security systems, despite the recession,” says ABI Research vice president and practice director Stan Schatt. “In fact, some large retailers have increased their deployments to counter recession-induced shoplifting.

Meanwhile, U.S. government spending, particular on enhanced border, port, and airport security will be a mainstay in the short to medium-term.” The recession, however, has produced a change in the kinds of systems being purchased. While video surveillance technology has been in a transition period from purely analog systems through hybrids to purely IP-based systems, analog systems’ lower costs — especially for companies with large amounts of legacy analog equipment — mean that more analog and fewer IP products are currently shipping. IP system growth has been further slowed by an ongoing debate over standards. Once the standards battles are settled and the wider economy improves, IP-based systems sales should grow quite dramatically.

ABI Research forecasts the total video surveillance market to 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.”