Following Croatia becoming a member of the European Union, growth of the country’s video surveillance equipment market is expected to accelerate, according to a new report from IMS Research
This echoes expansions in the Romanian and Bulgarian video surveillance equipment markets since their accession to the EU in 2007. The Romanian market has benefited from generous E.U. funding, which has driven the growth in infrastructure and city surveillance projects, more than doubling the video surveillance equipment market to $12.6 million in 2012, up from $5.7 million in 2007.
The Croatian market for video surveillance equipment was estimated to be worth $5.1 million in 2012, with double-digit growth forecast for the next five years. Research analysts say access to E.U. development funds, while crucial, is not the sole reason for growth in these markets. The associated administrative reforms designed to standardize business practices across Europe will serve to attract a greater level of foreign direct investment. However, according to IMS, a number of challenges remain for the Croatian authorities to overcome before the benefits to the country’s video surveillance market can be realized. Both the problems of inflexibility in labor markets and extensive bureaucratic red tape will need to be addressed. Should this be accomplished, the Croatian video surveillance equipment market likely will become more attractive to foreign investors. With the likelihood of E.U. development grants combined with an improved bureaucratic structure, Croatia represents an attractive opportunity for video surveillance equipment vendors, especially as increases in infrastructure and spending funded by grants from the European Central Bank, will lead to a greater demand for high-end networked video surveillance equipment, say analysts.
Meanwhile, IMS Research states in another recent report that the global market for electronic security equipment aimed at city surveillance applications will more than double in size from 2012 to 2017 as metropolitan areas adopt mobile technology to deal with threats more efficiently. Worldwide, revenue for electronic security equipment in city security will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 17.8 percent from 2012 to 2017. By 2017, wireless infrastructure and CCTV and video surveillance equipment will amount to just over $3.2 billion, up from $1.4 billion in 2012, say analysts. City surveillance is a key tool for police departments to manage metropolitan center locations, with crime reduction typically being the main goal. Using this technology, police can access video surveillance feeds from mobile command centers when responding to an incident. This allows the police to coordinate efficient, quick responses to any event.
As cities face a number of threats, ranging from the kind of widespread civil unrest that recently affected Istanbul to lone-wolf and terrorist attacks, the threats underscore the need to provide fast access for video surveillance systems, says IMS. Along with fast access for video surveillance systems, the requirement to push video streams out to various individuals and organizations across the city has increased. The mobility offered by these video systems is a key tool for police departments when managing city-center locations.
For cities the focus has shifted from basic surveillance needs toward mobile surveillance and emerging technology can send the video to police officers on the street, streaming that video directly to the smartphones or laptops in their patrol cars. Such mobile surveillance technology will act as a force multiplier for the officers on the ground, according to analysts.