Brazil: It's a Jungle out There!
Editor / Provider: The Editorial Team | Updated: 8/16/2007 | Article type: Hot Topics
High unemployment, crime, drug abuse, epidemics, poor public education, and environmental degradation thrown together with one of the world's most unequal distributions of wealth make for an unstable society: Conversely, the country is also an electronic security salesperson's dream.
Security is important in Brazil," explained Maocyr Lombardi Jr., General Manager of Sales at HDL. "There is a lot of violence here as well as social problems. Security is, therefore, a top concern." The market in Brazil, he continued, is growing at roughly 7 percent to 10 percent per year. "Our company is seeing sales growth of around 20 percent. The total market is flattening out, but I expect the 7 percent to 10 percent growth to continue over the next five to eight years. We have better growth because of our strong position and reputation."
According to the Associacao Brasileira das Empresas de Sistemas Eletronicos de Suguranca (ABESE), total spend on safety equipment and services every year in Brazil amounts to roughly US$20 billion. Given that 80 percent of security companies in Brazil are engaged in physical security with electronic companies constituting 19 percent and 1 percent being integrators, it is understandable that the market for electronic security equipment is estimated at only $1 billion (though this is far higher than the number given by many industry players who caution that even this figure encompasses far more than what would strictly pass for electronic security). This sector has grown 10 percent to 15 percent over the last several years with similar expansion predicted for the next several years as well. The widespread smuggling and rampant parallel imports mean that not everyone is sure that an exact figure can be given.
Brian Rich, President of Sens tar-Stel lar, also sees strong, stable growth. "The market is expanding about 10 percent to 15 percent per year. This is true for alarms, sensors and CCTVs." Then, Sergio Mendes, owner of Sektronix, a major distributor and licensed importer in Minas Gerais state, believes that the Brazilian market is worth $850 million and only 20 percent of that is electronic security; while Rudi Bouret Bayer, CEO of Nitrix CFTV, put the figures at $500 million, not including fire, of which 40 percent is surveillance, 55 percent alarms and intrusion, and 5 percent access control. "The market has been growing by 30 percent per year and, for some products, it has been growing even faster, at 50 percent," said Bayer.
For Marcia Cesare, Vice President of GSN Brasil, surveillance and CCTVs make up about 30 percent of the market; the other 50 percent is for perimeter, alarms and detectors; with 10 percent for access control and 10 percent for radio. "I am not including fire products here." Meanwhile, Regys de Lima, owner of Brasil Security Shop had this to say: "The total mix is about 45 percent for surveillance, 15 percent for access control, and around 40 percent for fire and alarms." ABESE's figures are 50 percent for CCTVs (surveillance), 40 percent for alarms and 10 percent for access control.
U.S. Firms Dominate the Market
Foreign product s , noted an ABESE report, account for approximately 50 percent of the total market, with U.S. firms controlling 50 percent of the import market. This is equal to approximately $250 million. Major competi tor s are China (20 percent) and Israel (13 percent), as well as other countries (10 percent). ABESE further estimated that foreign products account for 75 percent of the equipment on the market but foreigners only 5 percent of the services.
"While most products s o l d i n B r a z i l a r e imported from the U.S.," said de Lima, "everyone recognizes that a lot of this is manufactured in China, Mexico and Korea. That does not mean, however, that end users in Brazil are willing to buy brands from those countries. The brand is still American though everyone knows it is made in those countries, mostly the Asian ones. Asian products may be cheaper, but everyone still prefers to spend more for a U.S. brand because of the perception of better quality, and also because of the guarantees."
U.S. manufacturers compete successfully in Brazil, holding a share of approximately 50 percent, said Marina Konno at the U.S. Commercial Services, because U.S. products are well-perceived among large Brazilian and multinational companies, as well as by government procurement authorities that demand quality, durability and state-of-the-art technology. However, Korean manufacturers are challenging the U.S. market share by offering similar products at lower prices. Major U.S. suppliers of security equipment, she added, include Ademco, Sensormatic, Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Napco, Northern, Pelco, Sentrol, Motorola, Tyco Electronics, Kevlar, and Sun Microsystems.
"Trade and industry contacts state that they purchase about 85 percent of Brazilian imports of electronic security equipment from companies located in the U.S.," observed Kanno, "but not all such imports are of U.S. origin. Many foreign manufacturers ship to agents or distributors in the U.S. who act as their exporters to Latin American countries. They believe that the original manufacturers of imported electronic security equipment in Brazil are the U.S. (50 percent), Korea (20 percent), Israel (10 percent), Japan (10 percent), Canada (5 percent), the U.K. (2 percent), and others (3 percent)."
Major third-country manufacturers of electronic security equipment with a presence in Brazil, said Konno, are Phillips (Netherlands), DSC and Paradox (Canada), Kodo, Samsung and LG (Korea), Sony, Panasonic and Opiex (Japan), Rokonet and Cougar (Israel), and Thompson (France). The big electronic security companies, according to ABESE, are Siemens with 17 percent of the market, Estrela Azul (3 percent), Teleatlantic (3 percent), and other companies (77 percent). When it comes to monitoring companies, the biggies are Siemens (24 percent), Teleatlantic (7 percent), Estrela Azul (3 percent), Porto Seguro (3 percent), Prosegur (2 percent), Metronic (2 percent), and other companies (59 percent).
Brazil does have an important manufacturing sector of its own, but since liberalization in the early 1990s, many domestic firms that produced security equipment either replaced or complemented their production with imported products, said Kanno. "Low-quality but high-cost local production could not compete with high-quality imported products. Today, domestic production of security equipment supplies only about 20 percent of the market." There are domestic producers of alarm panels, sensors, access control equipment, and monitoring software, with major domestic manufacturers of electronic security equipment including Ensec, Graber and Siproel.
Regional Breakdown
The market for electronic security equipment, stated Kanno, is heavily concentrated in the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Espirito Santo and Minas Gerais. "Together, these states account for more than 50 percent of the market." Bayer highlighted the importance of the Sao Paulo area. "Within Brazil, the Sao Paulo area makes up about 60 percent of the market. That is true not only for electronic security but also for all other products. Other major markets are Rio de Janeiro and Recife in the North. The latter is an industrial center that is bedeviled by many social problems. There is a big divide between rich and poor."
ABESE noted that 63 percent of sales of safety and security equipment are concentrated in the southeast with 18 percent in the south, 13 percent in the northeast and 6 percent in the rest of the country.
"We have a good mix all over the country in terms of sales," said Lombardi. "I would say Sao Paulo state accounts for around 13 percent to 15 percent of our sales, with Minas Gerais another 5 percent and maybe only 3.5 percent to 4 percent in Rio de Janeiro. The latter is declining as a market because of social problems, crime and financial difficulties. There is a lot of violence there."
Rich reported a similarly wide coverage. "We are doing work all over the country. The following is the rank in terms of importance for our company: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador (including Bahia and Recife), Curitiba and Porto Alegre, and then the capital Brasilia. We are seeing some movement to the Central West including Matto Grasso and Goias."
"Brazil," said Cesare, "is such a big country that is has a wide variety of markets. There are many different markets in the same country. Northeastern Brazil, for example, is just starting to deal with security. Everything needs to be worked out. Everything needs to be explained. That is the complete opposite of, say, Sao Paulo where everyone knows everything about security. So the whole spectrum is there. People here need all kinds of products from the price and technology ranges."
In terms of regional differences, opined Daniel Kim, General Manager of Kodo, Sao Paulo has a concentration of market layers, and this generally leads to the region setting the standards with the rest of the country following. Market requirements, however, may still vary. "Some regions, including to some extent Rio de Janeiro," he said, "may not have the same level of infrastructure development and this can lead to changes in specifications as determined by the Sao Paulo market and its end user base. Sao Paulo is very well-developed. Many of the other regions are nowhere near being there yet."
Who's Buying
According to ABESE, major end users of electronic security equipment in Brazil are broken down as follows: financial institutions (50 percent), industrial and commercial facilities (30 percent), private homes (10 percent), and other (10 percent). It further noted that government accounts for 10 percent of purchases, while big buyers constitute the other 90 percent.
Kanno agreed. "Financial institutions are the most important end users of electronic security equipment. Federal law No. 9017 of March 30, 1995, requires that financial institutions offer adequate security in facilities with trained security guards and alarm systems that allow communication with an outside entity in case of a robbery. They are also required to submit to the Federal Police a security plan for each branch. Financial institutions demand quality, warranty and after-sales service for electronic security equipment." Banks with the largest number of branch offices, according to the Central Bank of Brazil, are Banco do Brasil, Bradesco, Caixa Economica Federal, Itau, Santander Banespa and Unibanco. By one estimate, the financial sector spends as much as $1 billion per year on safety and security (not all electronic equipment) services.
The end users, in Rich's view, are mostly government, industry, and state-owned companies. The main verticals are airports and ports, nuclear plants, hydroelectric plants, petrochemical companies, VIP residences , and prisons. Bayer sees them also as being commercial, government, and, at the high end, industrial. In addition, he noted that there is a lot of use of electronic security at restaurants, shops, chain stores. "The latter, in particular, is using multisite CCTV systems with DVR networks." For Kim, major verticals include banks, government, large industry, commercial enterprises like petrochemicals, and hospitals. Other end users of sophisticated electronic security equipment, said ABESE, are established foreign companies in sectors such as automotive, oil and gas, telecommunications, energy, and food processing.
Given that some have estimated that more than 300,000 cars are stolen in Brazil every year with car hijackings occuring in major cities every few hours, this is another area of focus. "Cargo robberies in the state of Sao Paulo," explained Kanno, "caused losses of approximately $50 million in the first quarter of 2005. To avoid such losses, transportation companies have invested $1.4 billion in equipment and personnel over the past year to enhance security. The number of cars and trucks equipped with some sort of intelligent security device is currently estimated at 350,000, and the number of companies that provide monitoring services is estimated at 250."
Kanno also cited port security as a segment that should continue expanding in the next few years. "Analysis done in early 2005 indicated that investments of toughly $180 million would be necessary to comply with security requirements imposed by the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS) and International Maritime Organization (IMO). Although several measures have already been implemented, excellent opportunities still exist for companies supplying security equipment used in port operations."
The residential market is also important, but Bayer estimated that, only 4 percent of homes in Sao Pauloone of the richest citieshave security devices. "The rest of the residences have the same problems with crime, but the owners simply cannot afford to have such systems installed. So in Brazil, you have one market that is very high end for the richthey can afford to buy anythingand the other is at the bottom where there is a lot of crime but no money to spend."
Where the Market is Heading
Best prospects include access control equipment, especially equipment that uses biometric technology; CCTVs; home security equipment; alarm systems; GPS-based monitoring technology; and fire prevention and detection. "Some of the above items are currently manufactured domestically," said Kanno, "but local industry contacts have indicated that domestic quality is not up to international levels."
"I see the big opportunities as being in access control, which is starting to move as well as radio monitoring," shared Cesare. "There are huge installations for radio monitoring systems particularly in the center of the country (Sao Paulo). Other opportunities include alarms and surveillance, but these will see steady, not spectacular, growth. IP is not really selling yet, but we are in negotiations with a few companies. Biometrics is all fingerprint recognition, though there is some iris at the high end. IP is not really being limited by price so much as infrastructure and bandwidth issues."
Kim believes that that there will be more systems integration in the next three years, along with more intelligent surveillance and IP. "Brazil started down this path two years ago, so the market here is at least threeif not fiveyears behind more developed markets. For this kind of integration, you need the right kind of infrastructure. That is only now becoming available and this has led hand-in-hand to development. It is precisely with this infrastructure that the technology for advanced integration and intelligence along with IP becomes possible."
There will be more integration of alarm panels and GPRS with Internet, said Eliane Wollmann Wedderhoff, Director, Sistemas Inteligentes Eletronicos, in agreement. "A lot of this is all separate at present. Integration has been slow to some degree because of the large installed base. Once companies have purchased a product, they are very reluctant to replace it with something else. They are very eager to find ways to incorporate it into any new setup despite the fact that they might not actually save that much money doing so. There is a hesitancy, a reluctance to be wasteful. They want to get as much out of the products and systems that they have already bought as possible."
Integration was also the name of the game for Eytan Dikstein, Director, Risco Group. "We used to sell mostly alarms and sensors but now we are moving into systems. We always did integration work but only for big buildings and installations. This kind of work was closed to a few companies. Now, this is moving ahead on many fronts because of the two following factors: more companies are doing the work and are able to do it, and reintegration work is proceeding."
While Dikstein pointed out that, previously, there were sophisticated access control and CCTV systems, now they are being combined in comprehensive unique systems with all features included. "You are seeing integration of all the systems that used to be separate. I would say our first project involving integration occurred in 2002around five years ago. Now, with improved Internet connectivity, it is much easier to do the integration that makes these comprehensive systems possible."
Open protocols, he added, also mean that players can combine a CCTV system from one company with an access control system from another and put the whole thing on a system platform from yet another. "The trend is very much toward open platforms and compatibility and interchangeability. Everyone in Brazil has an Internet connection. It is amazing how quickly this was established. There are even projects with the Internet linking together warehouses on a number of different farms. That was not even possible previously using telephone lines! All this connectivity is leading to demand and the possibility for greater intelligence. There is less simple monitoring of video, therefore, and more involving CCTV systems linked to alarms and access control."
De Lima was less rosy in his view. "There is not much integration going on in Brazil at the moment. Also, you need to keep in mind that terms and how they are used in Brazil are very different from the rest of the world. In Brazil, for example, surveillance means monitoring only." The hot trends in Brazil for alarms and perimeter are photobeam sensors, said Mendes, while one-door solutions are big for access control. "These may include a keypad or fingerprint reader."
"While a number of people are displaying fingerprint products at Exposec," said Mendes, "they are not really selling many yet." Then, for surveillance, it is cameras and DVRs. "Digital is increasing and is, now, about 60 percent to 70 percent of sales including DVRs and PC boards. IP is not significant. People do not know much about it. Everything in Brazil is about five years behind the U.S. People here, for example, are just starting to understand standalone DVRs."
Much Lower Pricing Points
In terms of pricing, there is no high-end market in Brazil, said Mendes. "The high-end market that exists in other countries, such as the U.S. or Taiwan, simply does not exist in Brazil. What is mid-end in those countries is high end in Brazil, and what is low end is the mid-end in Brazil. Finally, the lower level in Brazil is complete trash that would never be sold in these other countries. That is what people are smuggling in for sale on street corners."
"The market is split 50/50 between the high and low end in terms of value," said Bayer. "There is a big disparity between the companies willing to pay $300 for a security product and those that can pay only $30. There is very little in between."
The difference between Brazil and, say Argentina or Chile, stressed Cesare, is that there are many smuggled products and parallel imports in the former. Also, in the latter two, there is very little at the very low end of the market; it is mostly medium to high end. "Just to give some idea of the prices in the market, good quality black-white cameras are selling for $130, day-night for $280 (end-user prices). For Asian products, the same might be selling for $40 to $50 and $120 to $130, respectively."
The high end market in Brazil, said Lombardi, accounts for 5 percent to 7 percent of the total market. The mid-end is around 30 percent with the low end market accounting for around 60 percent of sales. "It is very difficult to find products made in Brazil at the low end; most of this is imported from China. I mention only sales totals; it is very difficult to determine this by value given the huge informal market."
According to Lombardi, his company's video door phones may sell for R$85 to R$90 ($40 to $45) to the distributors and they in turn sell them for around R$109 to R$119 ($55 to $60). "One video door phone costs about as much as 10 regular door phones", he said, "so that clearly puts them in the high-end market."
"The massive shift in the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and Brazilian Real is giving importers huge opportunities," observed Mendes. "The rate a year ago may have been R$3.3 to US$1. Today, that is about R$2. Yesterday, the exchange rate was as high as R$1.95! This is very good for importers such as our company, but not exporters. Now, is a fantastic time to do business in Brazil for foreign companies." Not surprisingly, Wollmann Wedderhoff, whose company is a domestic manufacturer, is less happy. "The strong Real has been bad for us. It is making imports much cheaper and that makes it harder for us to compete."
Say 'Cheese'
For cameras, one player put Pelco as the largest brand, followed by Samsung, Bosch and Nitrix; for DVRs, he continued, it is Pelco, Kodo and LG; for speed domes, it is Pelco, LG and Samsung. "The top companies in terms of sales for surveillance are Pelco and Bosch; each sells about US$5 to US$6 million per year." ABESE put the top CCTV brands as Kodo (19 percent), followed by Bosch (11 percent), Pelco (11 percent), Samsung (8 percent), LG (7 percent), Sony (6 percent), and other companies (38 percent). In turn, the major CCTV suppliers were Beatronic (14 percent), GSN (11 percent), PPA (9 percent), Securicenter (8 percent), and other companies (58 percent).
The best sellers for Samsung Techwin right now are day-night cameras, said Kim. "They are the top sellers because of the balance of good quality and affordable prices."
"Our main focus is CCTVs," said Mendes. "This is also true of the market. Alarms, which used to account for 90 percent of the market, now account for much less. Today, CCTVs are 50 percent of the market and about 70 percent for our companyˇs sales. That said, these surveillance solutions are mostly for commercial installations; the residential market is still quite limited. Just a point of clarification, if I may. Most Brazilians in big cities live in apartment buildings so I consider these sites as commercial, not residential applications."
Mendes further noted that government applications account for about 10 percent of the demand for CCTV solutions.
"Local, state and federal agencies are installing CCTV systems to monitor traffic and also provide security in shopping areas and city centers."
Few companies in Brazil specialize in surveillance, said de Lima. "Most of the big players that we work with also do work in surveillance, but this segment represents a smaller part of their overall sales mix. The reason is that smaller to medium-sized companies do not invest a lot in surveillance; this is done by only large companies and government agencies." He also noted that IP is used very little as it is too expensive. "Only the government has the necessary money. There are also network limitations, including problems with sufficient bandwidth."
"We sell mostly Paradox control panels and systems as well as radio monitoring systems from KP Electronics and access control from CDV," said Cesare. "All our cameras and CCTVs come from different companies, including Brazilian ones. We have two different lines of cameras: one is top of the line for big companies, plus we have a intermediate line for most customers." Cesare also finds that there are too many players in the CCTV sector. "The market is very fragmented with lots of Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese players competing. Most, however, are at the low end with a lot of this being sold in home centers of DIY markets."
Drawing a Line in the Sand
When it comes to perimeter security and alarms, de Lima finds the most important players to be Metropolitana (southern Brazil), Drepro Alarm (Curitiba), Coral (central Brazil) and Nordeste Co. in the north; while Cesare pointed to Ademco, Rokonet, DSC and Paradox.
Meanwhile, Rich cited Senstar-Stellar, Aliara (Argentina), Fiber Sensys (U.S.), and Speedrite (New Zealand). "We are different from most of our competitors in that we are not just providing electric fences and infrared. That is child's play. We are finding that there are very good prospects for our very professional equipment, including buried sensors. In all, we have 32 different systems. Because these products are so specialized and customized, we do not carry stock or keep merchandise in warehouses. Everything is cash in advance and then the order is shipped."
According to ABESE, the major alarm suppliers are Alarma (26 percent), Betatronic (12 percent), PPA (9 percent), Spya (4 percent), and other companies (49 percent). Alarm brands are Paradox (20 percent), Honeywell (17 percent), DSC (14 percent), Napco (11 percent), JFL (4 percent), Rokonet (4 percent), Innovanet (4 percent), and other companies (26 pecent).
"We manufacture alarm systems and GPRS and Internet communication devices," said Wollmann Wedderhoff. "Sales have taken off as there is a lot more availability of the product. Motorola and Siemens are selling products that work just fine." Also, she finds that the infrastructure is now more developed leading to improved connectivity. "These types of systems were launched about two years ago when the technology first became available. The prices are high, but demand is still growing. The limitations are that there are still not the economies of scale or knowledge among customers about how to use these products and what they can do. Getting that information to them will be key in growing this market. When our customers realize how vulnerable telephone lines are to attack, they really appreciate the value of our devices and systems."
Integration is having a major impact on the sector. "Alarms will not become obsolete," said Mendes, "but the sale of alarm systems is not going anywhere. We envision a system that provides alarm functions with DVRs and CCTV monitoring. This would be monitored by a central station. After all, when alarms send signals, no one knows what, in fact, is going on."
While Mendes has been looking for a system that integrates surveillance and alarms, so far he has not found the right kind of product. "While such systems are available, they are not readily affordable. They are used mostly by airports, big warehouses, and big corporationsnot small- to medium-sized users. We have not seen anything like this for sale at SecuTech or any other electronic-security exhibition for that matter. Perhaps we should look at developing a product and patenting it. It should be easy enough to make a DVR with a slot for a PC card, and add an alarm function."
Access Control
For access control, the big players, said de Lima, are Protect Brasil (Sao Paulo) and STV (southern Brazil), while Rich cited Honeywell, Ensec and HID (cards and readers).
Jason Bohrer, General Manager Americas for HID Global, reported that the Brazilian market has experienced significant growth "in the double digits, roughly 10 percent to 20 percent" for the past several years. The company already has a distribution center in Sao Paulo to better serve the market, and is now moving to add resources and new sales staff. "ASSA ABLOY also has invested in a major presence in Brazil and this adds to our strength and gives us a competitive presence. It is a unique market in that it is very localized in nature. The challenge in any developed market is pricing; that is a key factor."
Most of the products on the market are still 125 kHz-based, said Bohrer, though he is seeing movement to 13.56 MHz MIFARE as well as HID's iCLASS line of products. "We are facing some competition from low-priced MIFARE entry-level products. There is a very small presence of OEM; the majority of our business is at the local integration level. We are selling to enterprise-level businesses with a need for multiple doors and cardholder populations of over 1,000. This quickly falls off, however, to localized integration for five- to 10-door applications."
The Brazilian market, he continued, is in transition to allow more professional 13.56 MHz applications. "I expect this shift to take five to 10 years to complete. The good thing is that there are a lot of opportunities to shift directly to higher-end products, including IP technology with Ethernet plug-in, because of limited legacy product establishment here. This enables working off one multi-electrical system. This is the future. All reader devices will be powered off IT systems, not separately. Our Edge family of products offers these Ethernet capabilities."
New buildings are already installing CAT-5 cabling and this enables such applications. "This means that you can power your reader along with the server. Markets like Brazil are skipping through legacy directly to these kinds of applications. They are skipping over 125 kHz to cost-effective products."
Taking the Pulse of Biometrics
Brazil's biometric identification market is predicted to reach an annual turnover of $48 million by 2008. A large part of this will involve national identity cards. Each state in Brazil is allowed to print its own ID card, but layout and data are the same for all. Rio's ID cards, for example, are fully digitized using a two-dimensional barcode with information matched against offline owners. The code encodes a color photo, signature, two fingerprints and other data. Furthermore, at the end of 2005, the Brazilian government started development of a new passport, which will feature signatures, photos and 10 rolled fingerprints. All data will be stored to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) e-passport standards to allow for contactless electronic reading of passport content and ID verification, since fingerprint templates and token facial images will be available for automatic recognition.
Fujitsu, Tivit and Perto are actively investing in Brazil. Given the 150,000 ATMs in the country, there is great potential. Fujitsu's PalmSecure provides recognition of veins of the palm of the hand, crossing information with blood oxygenation before coding the information. The solution, said Fujitsu, is ideal for ATMs, computers and areas requiring strict access control. An ATM with the technology would sell for roughly $900. Meanwhile, Tivit has a fingerprint recognition system for use in financial institutions that will be marketed for $100 to $130 including, for use with POSs, ATMs and Web applications.
Almost all biometric products sold in Brazil are fingerprint identification ones, said Juliano Tiberio, Sales Manager at Nitgen do Brasil. "We do not sell any iris recognition." Prices, he continued, dropped by about 50 percent in the past year or so and this has made simple fingerprint devices affordable to the Brazilian customer. "We import our products from Korea. They are as good in terms of quality as European products."
The company's big competitors are Bioscrypt and Sagem. "Bioscrypt has better quality, but higher prices; while Sagem has better prices, but the quality is not as good as ours. We fit in the middle and that is where we are defining our niche. The products are being used mainly for access control and time and attendance as well as controlling Windows and Internet access. We are seeing growth of 30 percent or more in sales and I expect that to continue for the next several years." He clarified that Nitgen sells only the hardware, not software.
Bohrer is less impressed: "There is a limited quantity of biometrics for government applications. The vast majority of the access control market uses cards for entry and exit only, though there are some third-party applications for time and attendance and cashless vending."
Biometrics, in de Lima's view, however, is still being limited by the price. "Almost all of it is fingerprint, though some iris recognition is being used at the higher, again, mostly government end. While most companies use this for security, there is increasing interest in time and attendance, mostly in Sao Paulo, where all the large corporations have their headquarters." He estimated that Sao Paulo and southern Brazil account for about 75 percent of the total corporate activity in the country.