Eying security solutions

One of the primary outcomes of the global slowdown, backed by security woes, has been the evolution of the surveillance industry. Although banks and IT offices have been using video surveillance for a long time now, government organizations have preferred to use the technology at select locations.

However, 26x11 changed the entire national scenario on a large scale. Suddenly, the need was felt to monitor activities and trace movements in installation bases, marketplaces, corporate firms and other locations. "The Mumbai attacks was a game-changer for the video surveillance industry. Across the nation, people felt insecure and the need for surveillance rose," said Santosh Pillai, Chief Technology Officer, Zicom Electronic Security Systems.

The surveillance market in the Indian subcontinent has matured over the years. Primarily, the retail stores and manufacturing facilities accounted for the major consumer vertical in the surveillance space, but now there is an unparalleled increase in demand for video surveillance equipment across industries.

The Technology and Trends
One of the fastest growing industries in India, video signal processor chips supporting video capture, encoding and processing with network interface functions are considered as the most lucrative semiconductor opportunities in the video surveillance market. "In the present market scenario, video analytics with the adoption of megapixel cameras are fast evolving. It is further boosted with the automatic behavioral alarm systems," said Prakash Prabhu, Country Manager-India, Axis Communications.

Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) is one of the major terms in the video surveillance industry. Primarily developed for the banking, airport and town center establishments to monitor the movement, CCTV has evolved into a cost effective means of video surveillance in general and for SOHO use. The CCTV is primarily connected together by cables or wireless transmitters that cannot be received by standard television aerials or equipment. The transmissions of the video signals are solely intended to be reachable by the equipment on its committed closed circuit setup. However, the latest buzzword in the surveillance market is IP surveillance.

"Axis has been continuously driving the technology shift ever since it launched the first IP camera in 1996. Our endeavor has always been to adopt the best technologies in our product. Since Axis invests a lot in research and development and builds its products around its own engineered ASIC we deliver better quality and reliability in all our products," added Prabhu.

Over the ages, the video surveillance industry, which was mainly focusing on the BFSI sector, has finally forayed into the government space as well. This trend is now acting as a major booster for the industry.

"We provided CCTV surveillance solutions to the Bengaluru Traffic Police in 2007. After the police department analyzed the benefits of the solution, the law enforcement department carried out an expansion of the project in both scale and scope," commented Ravikant Malhan, VP-Special Projects Group), Zicom. In the project, Zicom executed the deployment in two phases. In phase-1 the company deployed 80 surveillance cameras and enlarged it further by another 80 cameras in phase-2.

"Traditionally surveillance solutions are deployed by large enterprises, government establishments and both these sectors continue to invest. But now with technology enhancements and lowered cost of equipments and TCO, surveillance solutions are now also being deployed across a wide mix of verticals like education, retail, finance, infrastructure and transportation," said Anoop Jarial, GM-Product Management,

D-Link India
On a regional basis, the IP video surveillance market is seeing particularly strong growth in Asia Pacific and the Americas with semi-conductor technologies enabling dramatic new features in IP video surveillance cameras and servers with the continuous innovation chain in technology.

As far as the consumer vertical is considered, the government sector now accounts for the majority share holder followed by the mid-sector players in the enterprise, IT and ITES segment including the traditional BFSI sector. The last slot comprises the SMB and SOHO segment which is opting for low-end solutions.

"Primarily surveillance is still the domain of law enforcement agencies. However, other government departments are slowly realizing the utility in monitoring remote places from a central control room. Corporate have largely used video surveillance to protect their assets inside offices and factories. However, they are soon realizing that even the large open assets like pipelines, telecommunication towers and utility assets like ATMs also need constant monitoring," said RamKrishna G, Technical Head, Sanvei Overseas, taking about the trends in the surveillance scenario.

The Slowdown Impact
When major clients in the private segment were limiting their budget and postponing plans for surveillance installations, the government entered the scenario with numerous proposals, mainly in the PSU and law enforcement segments.

"Government investment in physical security for safeguarding new as well existing public infrastructure will lead to an increased demand for video surveillance solutions. In addition to this, the private sector investment in physical security will also increase with the ever rising threat perception," said Suprabhat Chatterjee, VP-Infrastructure and Physical Safety and Security, Cisco, India and SAARC.

Talking about the overall impact of the slowdown, Prabhu said, "We have seen an increase in demand for IP enabled solutions in times of the slowdown. Certain segments have delayed decisions on investments in new infrastructure which has affected closures on a few projects."

The Road Ahead
Industry veterans in the video solutions space have been observing the market trend over the last two years and they seem optimist about its future. "For the last two years, the industry has been growing at a rate of 45 percent on a YoY basis and is expected to grow at the same rate for the coming two years. We are still not sure whether the growth will take place in the IP-based surveillance systems or the VRS segment," Pillai concluded. Voicing the same opinion, Prabhu said, "Rising infrastructure investments and the shift from analogue to IP surveillance will see its rise in demand. Educating system integration partners will also help them in promoting the true benefits of IP surveillance to their clients."

Frost & Sullivan pegs the market for security and surveillance equipment in India at Rs 1,800 crore and the video surveillance market at Rs 866 crore, both of which have a CAGR of 25-30 percent.

Vendors are eyeing the conversion from analog to IP systems as one of the major opportunities in the market.

Avishek Rakshit
avishekr@cybermedia.co.in