The access control industry enjoyed growth, albeit by a smaller margin than originally predicated, last year, and the growth trend is expected to grow in 2017, according to market research firm IHS Markit.
The access control industry enjoyed growth, albeit by a smaller margin than originally predicated, last year, and the growth trend is expected to grow in 2017, according to market research firm IHS Markit.
According to Blake Kozak, Principal Analyst at IHS Markit, the global access control market grew 6.1 percent in 2016, about 1 percent slower than originally forecast, due to underperforming countries such as Brazil, Russia, Latin America (except Mexico) and China, which only grew by 8.5 percent in 2016. The countries/regions that outperformed the rest in 2016 were the Middle East, Poland, Africa, India and Vietnam, he said.
Vertical markets that experienced growth above 9 percent in 2016 included education, residential and utilities and energy, while Healthcare also had a strong year, growing 8 percent in 2016, Kozak said.
According to Kozak, mobile access control credentials, mobility and security integration were top trends in 2016. Mobile credentials were a top trend due to the versatility and future proofing offered by the solution, which also permits remote provisioning as well as a more seamless security infrastructure across verticals such as enterprise, automotive, residential and hospitability, he said.
“Although the market was small in 2016 with about 4.5 million shipments globally, rapid growth is expected to continue into 2017, when mobile credentials will grow by about 200 percent to reach 13.5 million shipments globally,” Kozak said.
Closely tied to the trend of mobile credentials is mobility amid user demands for more control over their service regardless of where they were. “Access control as a service (ACaaS) and IP-enabled panels also helped to expand this trend to more vertical markets but cloud-based solutions in general became more necessary in order to merge logical and physical access control,” Kozak said. “Better centralized management of access control will be the biggest driver of uptake as it has the most immediate impact on the cost and efficiency of a system. Being able to upgrade software on a single server rather than having to visit individual sites not only reduces the costs of software maintenance but also cuts down on the time between when software faults are exposed and the time that a fix can be implemented.”
Finally, security integration became deeper in 2016, with logical access control as well as dashboards implemented on a wider scale to assist with report creation and other business functions, Kozak said.
As for 2017, the growth is expected to continue. “Countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, both mature security markets, are projected to have growth exceeding 7 percent in 2017. France and Germany are also expected to perform well, with growth above 5 percent. Emerging countries are expected to gain traction in 2017, especially for electronic locks,” he said. “Although China’s impact on access control has been far less profound compared to video surveillance, IHS believes China will begin to have more influence on trends across APAC as well as the global access control market beginning in 2017.”
Expanding access control to other business processes and increased awareness over cybersecurity will be among some of the top trends of 2017, Kozak said. “Access control suppliers and integrators will begin to become more entrenched in information technology (IT) and cyber security in 2017 through more complex deployments of logical/physical access control and end-to-end solutions,” he noted. “IHS also believes biometrics, cloud-based systems and mobile credentials will gain traction over the next 12 months and many of the restrictions on biometrics and cloud services throughout Europe will be restructured.”