Asian Products Enabling Wider Security Adoption in India

India's sizable population has made it a price-sensitive market. Asian manufacturers are making products more affordable while delivering quality, making more widespread security adoption possible in India.


Security had been a niche market in India. Budgets in businesses had not been high because of the lack of awareness; Products were not commonly available for the average consumers. However, the recent train blasts shook the nerve of the country, creating a need for caution against terrorism. Today, the mindset of the Indian consumers is shifting and people feel greater need for security.


Indian Market Characteristics
A sudden rise can be witnessed in the government sector for security spending, where most cities are creating surveillance nets with cameras all over the city.


Within the paradigm of a developing economy, the infrastructure growth, such as newly constructed Special Economic Zones, townships, bridges, and housing complexes, has led to a boom for the security sector.


Today, cameras are available in a less expensive range because of the options provided by Asian manufacturers. Manufacturers can approach the Indian government or law enforcement agencies to deploy cameras for public area surveillance with a more affordable price. Video door phones, alarm systems and cameras are also being installed in households and small enterprises across the country.


Analog surveillance has been prevalent in India for many years. A number of users are now contemplating either replacing or upgrading their existing technology. This kind of demand is generated mainly from high-end users such as government sector enterprises, shopping malls, hotels, airports, retail chains and hospitals that require improved technologies. Today the market is shifting completely from analog DVR systems that record on video tapes to network cameras, digital DVRs or DVR cards which can be installed in PCs.


In India, PC parts are easily available, so DVR card systems or network cameras recorded on PCs are the preferred method for most consumers. This allows consumers to plan in the long term and not to be laden with a proprietary technology. Stand-alone DVRs and NVRs are not the most popular items in India because they will need maintenance and repair a few years down the line. Most of the manufacturers are based outside of India and do not have local service/repair centers in India.


Most people also prefer to purchase equipment that does not bind them to a particular vendor. An example is network camera software. Most leading software supports cameras from major manufacturers and can be integrated with alarm systems. This gives users the opportunity to purchase network cameras from any brand to meet their needs.


Significant Rise in Asian Manufacturing
Most international major security product manufacturers have set up plants in China. With the technology transfer and know how, the Asian products have been refined over the years to offer similar levels of reliability and stability and to compete with products from the West. If they do lack some features seen in their western counterparts, it is a compromise people are willing to make.


Some manufacturers are developing customized products, such as building a DVR into monitors to offer a compact solution. Devices such as motion detectors and sensors which can generate an alarm, send an SMS, or dial a particular number in case of an intrusion are very affordable and are catching the attention of buyers looking for an affordable security system.


Research and development work is also being done in the network camera and DVR industry to solve problems in data compression and transmission. H.264 is an example, as Asian manufacturers have adopted it to reduce the bandwidth size of a security application. As a result, much greater quantity of video can now be stored compared to other compression techniques such as Wavelet. All these factors are leading to more efficient DVRs and NVRs.


The gap in technology between the West and Asia is rapidly reducing, and the pricing is just right for a market like India. Some DVRs available from Asian manufacturers cost only one-third of the price of their western counterparts and come with an equivalent guarantee.