According to a research note released by IHS on Tuesday, the global electronic access control market (excluding China) grew by 6.3 percent in 2014 and exceeded $3.1 billion.
Blake Kozak, principal analyst for security and building technologies at IHS, said that the firm believes a few technologies and services are poised to be disruptive in the segment over the next two to three years including; mobile identities, biometrics, hosted/managed services and IT integrators.
Regarding these trends Kozak wrote:
"Mobile credentials are becoming a mega trend globally. IHS expects that the bulk of the installations will first come in the hospitality/resorts and residential markets. IHS also expects that universities will be early adopters, while SMEs and large enterprise continue to learn how to deploy the technology among existing workers most efficiently.
"Biometrics tend to be a cyclical product offering. In 2013, IHS forecast slower growth for biometrics as many suppliers believed the technology was too expensive and was only available for large enterprise and high-security locations. However, in 2014 IHS found biometrics to be one of the most talked about trends globally. Although the price point for many of the biometrics remains out of reach for many end users, IHS expects the price to continue to fall, especially for facial and iris recognition. IHS also expects the use of biometrics in other industries will drive end-user awareness.
"For hosted/ managed services, IHS expects that as more developing nations see an increase in wages, there will be a demand to automate processes and reduce manned guarding services. The access control industry is expected to become more IT centric and as the market moves in this direction, integrators will become better prepared to sell ACaaS and end-users will be better prepared to accept these technologies.
"Finally, IT integrators and IT departments are expected to continue to play a larger role in security. IT departments are beginning to have greater influence over building owners and tenders since the most significant breaches have occurred within the IT domain, e.g. Target, and many of the most valuable assets of an organization are in the IT domain. Security and IT departments can begin to leverage the expertise of the other side, so access control can contribute cryptography while IT can contribute virtualization and networking. IHS expects that the physical space will continue to have a larger role within IT since access control can flag anomalies, which can create a chain reaction to protect intellectual property and other asset."
IHS said that it expects these and other trends will continue to develop though 2015 into 2016. The U.S., Canada and Western Europe are predicted to adopt mobile identities, open standards and hosted/managed services before other countries and sub-regions. In addition, IHS said that developing countries, especially in Southeast Asia, continue to be difficult markets for international access control suppliers to gain a foothold in and the firm is now predicting that the American region will outperform the Asian region (excluding china) until 2017.
