According to a new report from IHS Markit, the global access control market will grow by 6.8 percent in 2017 and exceed $4.2 billion. The market research firm said that access control would continue to play a larger role in enterprise applications as a result of deeper integrations with video surveillance, business processes and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
IHS Analyst Jimmy Dearing said that increased use of mobile credentials and new biometric technologies would be among the top hardware trends to watch in the market during 2017 along with logical/physical integrations and remote services such as Access Control-as-a-Service (ACaaS). In fact, mobile credential downloads are expected to triple, increasing from approximately 4.5 million downloads in 2016 to around 13.5 million this year.
Dearing said the reason for this strong growth is two-fold:
- The market sentiment believes that, as in other industries, mobile credentials in access control is not only a strong value proposition by itself, but mobile credentials also have the ability to unlock a more integrated and better value system for the end user while also allowing providers new avenues of services that can support revenues streams going forward.
- In addition, mobile credentials are not competing against the traditional physical card at this time and therefore have a potential market equal to that of smart cards.
Other highlights from the market analysis include:
Electronic Locks in Emerging Regions
- Electronic lock growth in emerging countries globally will expand by about 9 percent. Eastern Europe and Africa will lead all other regions with an estimated growth of 17 percent for electronic locks in 2017.
New Biometric Technologies
- Facial recognition will make further strides towards establishing itself as the second most popular type of biometric reader.
- Although fingerprint remains the industry standard for biometrics, facial recognition and iris recognition are currently battling it out for the title of the second most used type.
- IHS Markit forecasts an increasing interest in facial recognition over iris recognition. Iris recognition is more accurate and better suited for its niche role than facial recognition, but facial recognition is easier to install and does not have (unfounded) concerns for health.
- The market for facial recognition is predicted to grow rapidly over the next five years. Although it will not overtake iris recognition in revenue or shipments, it will have momentum.
Chinese Manufacturers Will Gain Share
- Although China’s impact on access control has been far less profound compared to video surveillance, China will begin to have more influence on trends across APAC as well as the global access control market beginning in 2017, IHS Markit predicts.
- In China, new factories crop up seemingly every month. Each new factory is keen to establish itself in terms of market share and, as a result, enters with extremely competitive pricing.
- AliExpress and the increasing number of English speaking freight-forwarding companies in Guangdong will also make it easier than ever for Western distributors and integrators to acquire products direct from these factories.
IP-enabled Controllers Will Experience Double-Digit Growth
- Global unit shipments of IP-enabled access controllers will grow at double the rate of other panel variants in 2017.
- The growth of the market for IP-based panels reflects greater use of web-based and online products.
- As access control systems move from PC-based to mobile-based control elements, the associated infrastructure will likely follow suit.
