Growing security threat perception is one of the key drivers of the Indian security industry, said Ranjt Nambiar, Director – sales, South Asia, HID Global at a media briefing in Bangalore on Thursday. The others being increasing affordability, huge investments in public infrastructure, integration of IT and physical security, modernisation of police forces and implementation of city surveillance projects.
Besides, the real estate sector’s increasing use of biometrics in most of the upcoming projects and adoption of smart cards by the banks and BFSI sectors are part of the drivers of the security industry. In addition, others sectors such as – IT/ITES, telecom, gaming and casinos, government spend, healthcare, transport, retail are also contributing their mite to the growth of India’s security market.
Nambiar feels that while the Indian security industry is evolving, there’s an emerging trend that with the convergence of physical and IT security verticals with the result that the industry is moving towards IP-based systems. The convergence of physical security with building management and control solutions is a clear trend in the market.
Indian Security Industry Landscape
According to Frost & Sullivan, globally, the security industry is estimated at $150 billion and it is growing at around 10-12 per cent CAGR (Compound annual growth rate). India, South Africa, China, Middle East, South America and some of the South Asian countries form the rapid growing markets.
The market for India, combining the organised and unorganised sectors, is estimated at more than $500 million, and growing at about 30 per cent per year. Of this, India’s electronic security market is estimated to be in the region of $227 million and is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 9 percent.
Indian is an evolving business market. Accompanied by the increased use of technology, it has brought about a glut of new security challenges that range from breaches in enterprise-level data security to issues of consumer identity privacy.
“The spotlight is on India to meet global standards for safety and security and the electronic security industry, which is largely import based, is fast expanding,” feels Nambiar.
“At the same time there do exists some challenges. In India, low awareness of about security solutions, higher cost of ownership, negative impact of the unorganised sector within the industry and delay in government projects have definitely impacted the growth of the security industry. Nevertheless, the India security industry is set to witness a high trajectory of growth,” Nambiar added.
According to Craig Sandness, MD, APAC, HID Global, “The physical access market has undergone a sea change. Increased government influence, new technologies and accelerated adoption rates is now influencing the security landscape.”
Recently, HID Global secured an 85,000-unit order from a major U.S. government agency for the company’s Omnikey contact smart card readers for network authentication. The order follows a series of investments that have positioned the company to deliver one of the most comprehensive physical access, logical access and government-issued ID offerings for meeting federal agency compliance, budget, feature and reliability requirements.
This significant order from a major U.S. agency re-asserts HID Global’s position as one of the premier providers of physical and logical access control solutions for the government.
The Omnikey readers support the U.S. Federal Government’s smart card program, including Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards that are mandated by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12), and the commonly used Common Access Card (CAC) credential. Both cards address requirements for federally issued credentials that U.S. Government employees and contractors must use to gain physical access to secured buildings and logical access to government computer resources. More than five million credentials have been issued by the government, to date, added Tim Phipps, Director, Identity & Access Management, Asia Pacific, HID Global.
Acquisitions For Growth
“With our growing product family and recent acquisitions of ActivIdentity and LaserCard, we now offer one of the industry’s broadest security product portfolios for government and enterprise customers. Our offering includes RFID cards and readers used for physical access, as well as smart cards, readers and middleware used for secure identity assurance and network authentication, plus secure card printing and issuance solutions. HID products are trusted by millions of government employees, across hundreds of agencies, worldwide,” stated Sandness.
ActivIdentity strengthened the company’s portfolio of authentication and credential management solutions.
LaserCard’s expertise ranges from secure card design and manufacture to issuance system implementation for large-scale citizen and resident identification programs.
