What’s in demand in the Indian security market?

Given the expanding nature of Indian economy, it’s normal that the country’s security market remains positive on growth. With an economy that’s over US$2 trillion in size, India recently surpassed France to become the sixth biggest economy in the world. A recent Reuters’ poll showed that India is expected to remain the fastest-growing major economy in the world this fiscal year at 7.4 percent. To put this in perspective, the poll also showed China’s economy is expected to grow at 6.6 percent during the same period.

Sudhindra Holla, Sales Director for India & SAARC at Axis Communications, pointed out that according to the research firm IHS, India’s market for network video cameras is estimated to reach $194.7 million by 2020. Separate reports published last year projects an 18 percent growth for the security devices market in the next five years. Going by these numbers alone, companies can get an idea of the skyrocketing demand in the country now.

"We see a huge opportunity for IP cameras with the last five years seeing a paradigm shift with digital technology,” Holla said. "The segments with the highest requirement are government, defense, transportation, retail, banking and financial, critical infrastructure, and oil and gas sectors followed by upcoming sectors such as education and residential. India is at the cusp of a digital revolution with the government focusing on Digital India. Security is a growing concern and with increasing crime rates, the reconnaissance needs have turned into a need for everybody.”

But one of the problems when studying a nascent market like India is that it is difficult to estimate what products are the most in demand. To be fair, India remains a very fragmented market, not just because of its developing nature but also due to the cultural and linguistic differences that make the country complex.

What’s the market looking for?

Many systems integrators (SIs) and consultants are limited to specific geographical regions and would find it difficult to provide a comprehensive picture of market demands in the country. But this shouldn’t deter foreign companies trying to enter the market. That there are already several international companies thriving in the country should be proof that Indian market is definitely penetrable. It’s all about investing in a careful study of the market and its nuances.

MR Krishnan, Executive Director of Adtech Systems, said that while surveillance cameras continue to remain the most sought-after security product, there have been some significant changes in the consumer behavior.

“Customers are standardizing the resolutions to 3 megapixels or above for commercial properties,” Krishnan said. “They have also started using branded products for commercial projects, with specific care to understand the security features in terms of preventing hacking of the cameras itself.”

He added that access control systems, for both people and vehicle access, are also on the rise in both the residential and commercial sector. In fact, access control solutions are becoming a standard for all new residential projects. However, biometrics is mostly still popular in time and attendance applications alone.

“Systems like parking management solutions are limited to spaces within buildings,” Krishnan added. “Parking control systems in public roads are yet to get popular.”

Vinayak Sane, Principal Consultant and Chief Technical Architect at Elmark Engineers, elaborated further on this, adding that parking management solutions are becoming popular in commercial properties like malls. These parking management solutions are interfaced to the smart mall concept where in you can pre-book the parking slot. Once in, the presence is then integrated to the shopping master database for the stores to deliver a rich and personalized experience to the visitor.

This is good news for security solution providers as entities like malls are increasing at a rapid rate in India. According to data from JLL India, the number of malls in the country has increased from nine in 2002 to 308 in 2017.

Holla provided a manufacturer’s perspective on this. According to him, the major security products that Axis Communications is seeing growing demand and leading the way are technologies such as IP audio and facial recognition.

What are the trends in the market?

According to Pawan Desai, CEO of Mikat Advisory Services, the Indian market is finally moving more towards integration of security solutions now. Speaking specifically on the demands in the video surveillance sector, which he expects to be growing at 18-20 percent, Desai pointed out three major trends.

Analytics on edge

Until recently, the market was more interested in analytics at the server level. But given concerns like false positives and bandwidth issues, centralized analytics never really caught on. Bandwidth would especially be a cause of concern here as infrastructure limitations continue to remain a severe problem in India. With cameras that provide analytics on edge, such issues can be dealt with.

Higher resolution

As analytics on edge become popular, cameras with higher megapixels become a necessity. This, according to Desai, is creating a need for cameras that can capture higher quality videos.

Cybersecurity 

This is, of course, a major concern worldwide now. Reports of vulnerabilities in surveillance equipment have heightened concerns and have brought attention to cybersecurity of endpoint devices. Earlier, cybersecurity was limited to the server level. Now, the focus is on the cameras and other equipment as well.

Speaking of analytics, Sane said that one of the problems that could be specific to the Indian market is that the foreign solution providers fail to understand the unique characteristics of the market. For instance, India does not have a standard format for license plates. Local languages font is predominant in many of the states. So, a license plate recognition system should be familiar with a number of possibilities to recognize the numbers.

To sum it up, Sane added an interesting thought. Certain foreign companies that had entered the Indian market quite a while ago, came in with the conviction that they would focus on government projects mainly because that was where the money was. However, this proved to be a mistake later as government projects in India take a long time to be implemented. Realizing this, they recently changed their focus to include commercial projects as well and has hence seen better performance. In short, this gives a basic starting point on how Indian market should be approached.

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