This rise in connectivity can be seen across all global regions, including Latin America. While more price sensitive than other regions, Mexico and other Latin American countries are increasingly connecting their systems through building management system (BMS) platforms.

Unlike in North America and Europe, connectivity growth in Latin America is primarily driven by savings in equipment servicing, preventive maintenance and central monitoring, rather than by power cost savings. Connecting networked panels together, and adding a central monitoring station, allows for more effective preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance has become very prevalent in Mexico, because it not only reduces costs, but also improves the product lifecycle and helps to avoid later unplanned maintenance, which is typically more expensive.

While saving energy is not currently a major talking point in Latin America, it could become more prevalent in the future. In Brazil, for example, electrical bills have risen almost 50 percent over the past three years.

As building owners have started to add more connected systems throughout the region, the integrator sales channel has become more important to the manufacturers of fire products. The integrator sales channel has growing influence over distribution and other channels, due to their expertise in working with connecting systems.

While distribution will remain the largest sales channel in terms of revenue for fire-detection and suppression products in Latin America IHS Markit predicts – growing to $232.7 million through 2022 -- direct sales to integrators and installers will be the fastest-growing sales channel in Latin America through 2022, with a CAGR of 4.6 percent from 2017 to 2022.

Building owners have emphasised buying through integration, because they typically help install and sell total building solutions from their portfolios. If they sell a security system to a building, and the owner wants to have the fire system connected to the same central monitoring station, they know which fire products integrate well with other systems and the BMS platform. The ability to tie systems together, and provide end-users with a single place to purchase, has created more business for integrators throughout the region.

"Fire Detection and Suppression Equipment – Latin America Report - 2018" is the latest report from IHS Markit and provides an overview of the Latin America market for fire detection and suppression equipment. It provides systems integrators and product manufacturers with market sizes, growth forecasts, market trends and the competitive landscape. It also evaluates the development of key regional trends, such as the use of intruder alarm panels, smoke alarms (9-volt battery) and how the use of equipment differs by country.