The growth rate of local spending in Australia has been around 2.5 percent on average over the last few years, but has significantly dropped off since the last quarter. Back in March 2012 it was as high as 4 percent. “We are seeing more price conscious tenders and projects which could be a fallout from this lack of gro
The growth rate of local spending in Australia has been around 2.5 percent on average over the last few years, but has significantly dropped off since the last quarter. Back in March 2012 it was as high as 4 percent. “We are seeing more price conscious tenders and projects which could be a fallout from this lack of growth. We did have a slow first quarter this year and the general opinion of people I spoke with in Australia and around the world was that it was a similar situation globally,” said Adam Storoschenko, GM of
O-Lin Security Solutions.
In relation to O-Lin Security Solutions, the company focuses more on the private sector, which has led to a healthy growth rate of 15 to 20 percent on average each year. Some of the major security projects O-Lin has been involved directly in Australia or assisted with are the Perth airport, New South Wales state rail, Sydney markets, the JPL Group, and the Bank of Queensland.
Australia has a unique IP development compared to other countries in APAC, as that it is slower to adopt IP surveillance cameras, which is mainly due to the infrastructure. “Australia should not be a country that is sitting around number 44 on the list of ‘average connection speed by country’, we are far more developed that this but it shows you how bad our communications infrastructure is. The National Broadband Network (NBN) should go a long way to fixing that but for the majority, it will be some time before they see the benefits,” Storoschenko said.
Because of the slow adoption of IP, fewer solutions are available, which result in a more product driven market. According to Storoschenko, end users are looking for cost effective solutions that can be controlled from their smart phones or tablets. “There are so many products now, either purchasing online or overseas that are catering for this segment,” he said.
With the NBN’s construction program plan to connect one third of all Australian premises to the national broadband network by 2017, IP growth is bound to receive a boost. “Australia has always lagged behind most developed countries when it comes to the strength of our network, and now with the NBN it will help us bridge that gap. There were two bottle necks, price of higher resolution cameras, and the bandwidth. If the NBN fixes the bandwidth issues and with prices of the high megapixel cameras continuing to fall, it should help grow this market,” said Storoschenko.
Australia is full of opportunities as more and more opportunities arise. “The surveillance market in Australia is continually growing, and we can determine this by the increasing amount of opportunities to quote on. With the help of our systems integrators, we are able to support customers vast and wide, but majority of our work in is the central business district areas,” said Storoschenko.