PRODUCTS & SYSTEMS

other verticals like hospitality are also in a recovery trajectory. “Growth in Americas was driven by a recovery in the US commercial construction market, particularly in renovation and replacement, Latin America strength, market share gains, and price realization that roughly equaled the volume contribution,” said Meier-Rentrop added. “In Asia Pacific, all major markets contributed to growth. Continued good growth momentum came from the business with touchless access solutions. For example, sales for touchless solutions in Hong Kong increased by around 50 percent in 2021-22 versus the previous year. And there was strong double-digit growth in door hardware, entrance systems, lodging systems, and mechanical key systems.”

According to Meier-Rentrop, growth in Europe & Africa could continue on the back of a strong order book and a solid project pipeline across major marketssuch as dormakaba’s major contracts with Avinor to deliver self-boarding gates, one-way corridors, and related services for all Norwegian airports, and the REWE Group in Austria, the national supermarket chain. Kim added that oil and gas companies have also shown a strong interest in access control to enhance security on their sites. This may potentially be due to supply issues arising from situations in Russia.

David Thean, the General Manager of Asia at Gallagher Security, also added they are seeing an uptake in new construction projects compared to the past 3 years, albeit a little below what we have expected because of concerns about a possible global recession. „The government sector/vertical has seen the most demand and growth because of infrastructure upgrading and a push for urbanization,“ Thean said. „Another vertical would be the hospitality sector, as these businesses are making a big comeback because borders are reopening and people across the world are starting to travel again for tourism.“

After COVID-19 brought a hiatus of about 24 months, 2022 has been a rather busy year for video surveillance companies. Several projects that were put on hold due to healthcare concerns have restarted, while customers are eager to invest in new plans that would increase market demand. “From a company perspective, we have seen solid growth across the year, driven by growth in market demand,” said Ray Mauritsson, CEO of Axis Communications. “We believe the recovery the markets are experiencing since the pandemic is a key factor in this.”

But the pandemic hasn’t been the only reason. Technological developments that allow customers to improve security and convenience have also increased demand. “2022 continued a growth path within the video surveillance industry,” said Charles Pitman, Product Marketing Manager at Genetec. “Customers are more and more comfortable with having connected devices and systems within their environment and are increasingly looking at ways to simplify system maintenance while having access to their security systems on the go.”

Supply chain disruptions and unavailability of components were one of the biggest challenges that businesses across the board faced in 2022. Although the chip shortage appears to ease now, the industry continues to reel under this pressure. “Like many other organizations, we are still challenged by the lingering effects of the pandemic combined with global component shortages and supply chain disruptions,” Mauritsson said. “While this situation is not unique to Axis, it has presented us with issues that have caused us to adapt. However, this has given us the opportunity to rethink and revisit how we go about the design and manufacture of our products, and as we see the markets recover and improvements in supply chains, we are now seeing steady and continuous improvement.”

Another problem was that the recovery from the pandemic had not been the same across markets. In many parts of the world, governments have remained slow to restart unrestricted travel and operations. Countries like China continue to remain cautious, prompting businesses to take things slow. “General market instability, supply chain issues, and labor shortages have all put infrastructure investment in business functions like security in a precarious position,” Pitman said. “Meanwhile, the slower-than-expected return to the office slowed down major projects and new construction.”

More customers are now aware of the power of analytics and how leveraging it could help their businesses. The reduced cost, improved efficiency, and better protection that analytics offers have a better appeal than the reactive security devices of the previous era. “Over the last year, we have seen new projects of all kinds, private and public, requiring surveillance by design,” Pitman said. “Many businesses have been turning to video analytics solutions to strengthen site security, gain new insights, and solve unique problems. Greater adoption of video analytics has also been propelled by technologies such as machine learning and deep learning, which offer the potential to automate a lot of data processing and workflows while delivering actionable information to operators.” Pitman added that video analytics applications have continued to mature in ways that make them easier and more economical to deploy at scale. This was made possible by vendors who focus on hardware resource efficiency and offer more granular controls for running ana- lytics at certain intervals or schedules instead of continuously.

Mauritsson added that increased demand is a natural progression as customers become more aware of security concerns and how to deal with them. More and more customers are attracted to advanced surveillance solutions that can offer better protection and peace of mind. “Firstly, there has been an underlying growth in our market for many years now, mainly driven by an increased interest and need for security technology across all sectors,” Mauritsson said. “This growth in demand was not really affected by the pandemic, even though lockdowns and supply-chain issues had some short-term impact on Axis sales. Secondly, there is a demand for more and more innovative technology. We have always prided ourselves on being at the forefront of technological innovation, and with that comes an increased demand for our products.”

For many reasons, it isn‘t easy to point out verticals that are growing faster than others at the moment. New and old projects are picking up across sectors for many companies. “It’s difficult to pin any one vertical that has experienced the most demand and growth as so much of what we offer can be broadly applied to many sectors,” Mauritsson said. “We’re seeing growth across all major segments.” Pitman said that Genetec is also seeing growth across many sectors, particularly in the transport, public (government), enterprise–engineering, and industrial sectors. A report from KPMG suggests that 2022 will be a year of opportunity as the world learns from the past and works to rebuild with more resilience, sustainability, and equity. But since COVID-19 has significantly influenced people’s lives, consumer behavior would also have seen a dramatic change. “It will also be a year of uncertainty as new challenges emerge and social expectations continue to shift as we learn to live in a world with (not after) COVID,” KPMG noted in its report. “And infrastructure leaders have an opportunity to fundamentally change our collective path on the climate, social, and governance agenda.” n