According to a new market report from Marketsandmarkets, the perimeter security market is projected to grow from 61.3 billion US dollars in 2020 to 96.5 billion by 2026 – at a CAGR of 7.9 per cent. Asia Pacific (APAC) is expected to record the highest CAGR in the global perimeter security market during the forecast period. The rise in perimeter intrusions, theft incidences, burglary, cross-border terrorism, and illegal immigration are expected to drive the market growth.
The report concludes that due to the pandemic, the dependency on homeland security and law enforcement agencies has increased significantly and critical infrastructure security, emergency services, and others are “leveraging the perimeter security solutions to provide necessary services to consumers”.
Empty premises
Even though many people work from home right now, it is obvious that perimeter security remains important and not least for critical infrastructure, airports, data centres and other high-end applications.
Mark Cosgrave, Division Manager for Western Europe at Optex, also highlights that there are more premises being left void because of the pandemic. Perimeter security and security as a whole has therefore been a concern for many people during the pandemic. Being able to remotely access and review what is happening on-site is very important.
“We have seen an uptrend and an uptake in external security sensors – people want to secure their premises – so in that way it has been positive for us,” he says.
New functionality
Andries Nouwens believes it has become clear that security operators, end users and other stakeholders are looking to save costs by potentially leveraging new functionality from their existing security infrastructure beyond the realm of the security space. There can be actionable insights that enhance security and help to safeguard public health.
“For example, now we would also like to receive live data about how many people have already entered a certain area to avoid overcrowding and enabling safe social distancing. Or the ability to accurately identify people with elevated skin temperature at checkpoints in office buildings, manufacturing plants, and airports.
As a consequence, he argues video security solutions need to be able to make effective use of artificial intelligence like video analytics to help security operators detect relevant events and objects, while keeping false alarm rates low.
A broad market
Mark Cosgrave stresses that when it comes to perimeter security, the market is very broad in terms of verticals. There has been a transition towards more e-commerce in the whole world, which increases the importance for warehouses and their perimeters to be secure. Another vertical that has been benefiting from the accelerated digitalisation is data centres – the amount of data is growing steadily and so too do cloud services.
Mark Cosgrave says: “We have been working with data centres quite a lot, and many things have been transferred to online. So, the demand for broadband is significantly increased. We also find ourselves working more with telecommunication companies, they are investing in their security in substations, as they have in the past but there is more interest and demand for that type of security system.”
Marketsandmarkets points out that the technological advancements with next-generation sensors, integrated fibre-optic Perimeter Intrusion Detection System (PIDS), thermal cameras, and video analytics, are experiencing high growth.
A combination of sensors
Perimeter security is often described as layer on layer, much like an onion. And different layers may require different technical solutions and the need for multi-layered perimeter protection has increased. There is no one solution that fits all applications. Often, perimeter security must combine qualitative sensors that provide reliable information and a video surveillance system then can verify/confirm what is happening. Thermal imaging and video analytics also complement each other well and effectively address the potential needs.
Marketsandmarkets stresses that technologies such as next-generation fence-mounted sensors, infrared sensors, integrated fibre-optic perimeter intrusion detection systems, and perimeter fence detection systems, combined with CCTV, offer huge growth opportunities for the perimeter security market.