The size of the global market for smart cards in the healthcare sector is expected to reach USD 2.46 billion by 2028, expanding at a CAGR of 12.4%, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc.

Similar to many other markets, the market for smart cards in healthcare has also been significantly affected by Covid-19. Some of those major impacts include supply chain disruptions, a decline in sales, and low demand. Companies such as Thales Group reported flat growth in their smart cards product segment. Therefore, according to the researchers, the overall impact of Covid-19 on the market was neutral.

The flexibility provided by smart cards to securely add information to a patient healthcare card after its issuance is expected to boost the market growth. This factor delivers various benefits for healthcare applications. Patient prescriptions can be written to the card, providing up-to-date information when a patient is receiving medical care from multiple providers or in an emergency; patient record identification or multiple patient identification numbers can be saved to the smart card, enabling record exchange as well as helping with care coordination amongst multiple healthcare providers; and patient healthcare information can be saved to and updated on the card by certified healthcare providers, with updated information available for both the healthcare providers and patient to access.

The market is fairly competitive owing to the presence of the most notable participants, along with other manufacturers of smart cards for healthcare applications. These players are involved in new product launches, acquisitions, and partnerships to gain a competitive advantage over each other. For instance, in March 2020, Cardlogix Corporation launched a new edition of BIOSID, a rugged biometric tablet solution. With this, it expanded its product portfolio.

By product type, the contactless segment held the dominant share of over 28.0% in 2020 due to high global demand. Based on component, the microcontroller-based smart cards segment held the largest share of more than 55.0% in 2020 down to the portability and large memory capabilities of these smart cards

In terms of geography, in 2020, Europe held the dominant share of over 30.0% of the market, which according to the findings is because of the presence of major market players in the region and government initiatives to implement smart cards in the healthcare systems of those countries.

However, the findings show that is Asia Pacific that held the second-largest revenue share in 2020 and is expected to witness the fastest growth over the forecast period to 2028. The growing digitalisation of healthcare systems in countries, such as India, is fuelling the market growth in this region.

Some of the key players included in the research report include, Atos SE, Giesecke+Devrient GmbH, Infineon Technologies AB, NXP Semiconductors. Texas Instruments Incorporated, Thales Group, Cardlogix Corporation, Identicard Systems.

Mobotix AG and Konica Minolta Inc. have agreed to intensify video analytics technology by participating in the FORXAI partnership programme and further strengthen synergies between the two companies.

Konica Minolta has its own advanced imaging IoT (AI) technology “FORXAI” to gain competitive advantage by combining intelligent sensor devices, imaging AI (Deep Learning) and imaging IoT platform.

As a first result, the Mobotix 7 camera platform has already implemented embedded deep learning functions (e.g. human behaviour, object recognition, etc.) as certified apps. This contributes to an advanced edge Artificial Intelligence function which opens for new market opportunities. Artificial Intelligence, AI can be used in solutions where the cameras can provide data related to peoples behaviour e.g. in areas with risk of crime but also for retail and marketing purposes etc.

In addition, Mobotix is gaining value for specific vertical markets, accelerating the company’s transformation from a traditional manufacturer to a solutions provider. A central element in this strategy is the newly established Mobotix development centre in Madrid, where a team of international specialists in the field of image processing and artificial intelligence can implement customer-specific solutions in short time.

“We are pleased about the trustful cooperation with Konica Minolta in line with our strategy. Mobotix AG has now taken a significant step to develop further as a comprehensive video solution provider with a complete range of hardware and software applications”, emphasises Thomas Lausten, CEO of Mobotix. Konica Minolta has already been a strategic investor of Mobotix since 2016.

Marketsandmarkets have released a report predicting that the the global post-Covid 19 critical infrastructure protection market size could grow from USD 133.3 billion in 2021 to USD 157.1 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate of 3.3% over that same period.

By solution, the analysts suggest that it is the physical safety and security segment that will hold the largest market size during the forecast period. Any critical infrastructure requires multiple physical barriers to ensure physical protection.

Terrorism remains a huge challenge
Terrorism and natural disasters remain the biggest challenges for CIP. For example, in September 2019, Saudi Arabia suffered the deadliest attack on its oil facilities named Saudi Aramco. A small army of drones attacked two major oil plants in Abqaiq and Khura, destroying nearly 50% of the countrys global supply of crude oil. Therefore, enterprises need to think beyond traditional perimeter security, clearly define security perimeters, and protect secured areas with entry controls to ensure authorised personnel entry.

Secure and robust security systems such as high-quality video surveillance systems and perimeter security systems are integrated in premises to monitor ongoing activities in and around the premises. With the inception of video analytics as well as technologies, such as thermal cameras and biometric authentication, video surveillance has improved drastically. Some systems now use micro waves and radio waves to create perimeters that can alert security teams about threats.

Video surveillance devices supported by video analytics software help monitor crowds in public areas and enterprises. The increased adoption of video surveillance supported by the facial recognition technology is observed in various application areas, including border control, law enforcement, and government and public utilities. The physical safety and security segment includes physical identity and access control systems, perimeter intrusion systems (radars and sensors), video surveillance systems, screening and scanning, and others (facility management systems, emergency response, and disaster management).

Commercial sector tops the vertical markets
The commercial sector includes sensitive areas, such as hospitals, stadiums, theatres, auditoriums, malls, offices, and holy places. Protecting these facilities becomes extremely important for countries’ security and economy. These challenging environments need to be secured by deploying the right technology and providing the best possible information to decision makers. These critical infrastructures typically cover large areas, and thus, the need to achieve full coverage and better operational efficiencies drives the growth of this vertical.

North America takes the largest geographical slice
In this region Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and international collaborations have led to effective critical infrastructure security and resilience. As per the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 85% of the US’ critical infrastructures such as oil and gas, banking and finance, transportation, utilities, electric power grids, and defence are owned by the private sector and the rest is regulated by the public sector.

The National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) enables state, regional, federal, local, and international governments to work within and with their private partners for a networked community to maintain effective risk management and security of the region’s critical infrastructure. For example, the energy and power grid sector in the region requires public, private, and regulatory co-operation among DHS, Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of Defense (DOD) for protecting their Operational Technology (OT) systems from cyber threats. International co-operation among Public Safety (PS) Canada and the US DHS has facilitated real-time collaborations for critical infrastructure cyber security issues.

Major vendors
Major vendors mentioned in the global Critical infrastructure protection market report include BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell, Airbus, Raytheon, Thales, Hexagon, Johnson Controls, Huawei, Optasense, Teltronic, Motorola Solutions, Axis Communications, Waterfall Security Solutions, Rolta, Scadafence, Tyco International, 3xlogic and Sightlogix, amongst others.

a&s Adria magazine, the professional magazine dedicated to security, IoT, ICT, mobility, automation, and smart solutions industry professionals in the Adriatic region and beyond, has launched a dedicated a&s Adria Viber Community platform to further streamline networking in the community of users and businesses.

a&s Adria Viber Community offers a messaging system in which superadministrators and administrators can send messages in order to provide support for advertising one’s company and its products within the Community. If a user wants to make an announcement or advertise a product, they can contact a&s Adria Viber Community admin team to get it done on their behalf.

This means that professional administrators will be in charge of advertisements. If a user has entered an advertising contract or agreement, their ad will be posted in the community and made easily visible to all members.

To provide an all-around safe and secure user experience, all Community members’ phone numbers are hidden. Members can only chat directly and privately with hidden-number chats. At the same time, all new members can see the chat history and join the conversation easily.

Users are reminded to invite their partners to join the community and improve their networking and business opportunities ahead of the Summit which takes place on 13 and 14 October 2021 in Belgrade.

Join a&s Adria Viber Community: https://invite.viber.com/?g2=AQAC8UVMo1vjWk3goGSkM82yKw95YgQPIZWcPPdqCRQs9zD6YSNzNvuMsE%2BVO97o&lang=en

Genetec, Milestone Systems and Motorola Solutions have grown to become the “big 3” suppliers of video surveillance software, video analytics and managed services. According to a new report from Novaira Insights, the global market for video surveillance software and managed services was worth $2.2 billion in 2020 with around 69% of this outside China.

However, the supply base outside China is very different to that of the Chinese domestic market. The world excluding China is served, not only by the big 3, but also by a multitude of other international suppliers, each with a small market share of less than 3%. In comparison, China is served by domestic suppliers like Hikvision, Dahua and “AI unicorns” like Sensetime and Megvii.

The report, “The world market for video surveillance hardware and software”, shows that, outside China, the market for of video surveillance software and managed services continued to grow slightly in 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic. Growth In the Americas was highest. Here, revenues from video surveillance software and managed services grew 8.8% in 2020. Many end-users took advantage of facilities being closed to upgrade their software. This focus on upgrading software led to end-users re-evaluating their entire back-end architectures. This resulted in greater use of cloud in architectures and increased spending on software managed services. These factors contributed to an acceleration in the proportion of revenues from recurring spending. The report forecasts high average annual growth of 12.1% in the world excluding market from 2020 to 2025.

According to Jon Cropley, principal analyst at Novaira Insights, “Genetec, Milestone and Motorola grew their combined share of the world excluding China market for video surveillance software and managed services to 33% in 2020. Software continues to be a key differentiator in video surveillance system functionality and will continue to offer these and other suppliers high revenue growth opportunities in future years. Furthermore, the bounds of what is classified as video surveillance software continues to expand with additional and sometimes specialist functionality brought about by integrations of video analytics and other sensors”.

The global video surveillance market revenues are set to reach $24 bn by the end of 2021 according to Omdia’s latest Video Surveillance and Analytics Intelligence Database.

This marks a quick recovery for the video surveillance market as demand that was suppressed in 2020 will return and revenues will be bolstered by projects that were postponed in 2020 due to Covid getting the greenlight in 2021. Omdia forecasts that total video surveillance market revenues will grow to $31.9bn by 2025 with a total CAGR of 7.1% between 2020-2025.

Thermal body temperature solutions
According to the analysts, the size of the thermal body temperature solutions market has rapidly grown to $1.3 bn globally in 2020. Driven by Covid-19 precautions, this technology has been adopted by several regions, in particular China, East Asia, India and the Middle East. However, without the growth in thermal body temperature solutions, the global video surveillance equipment market declined 3.8% globally in 2020

Despite being a driving growth factor in 2020, Omdia forecasts the thermal body temperature solutions market will decline rapidly in 2021 to just $137 million, an 89.8% decline, ultimately limiting the overall video market surveillance market growth.

Various factors increase average selling prices
Omdia expects average selling prices of video surveillance equipment to increase in the short term as US-China geopolitical tension and supply chain constraints from the Covid-19 pandemic increases pressure of vendor margins.

In recent years US-China geopolitical tensions within the video surveillance industry have escalated. The initial NDAA and blacklisting of Hikvision, Dahua and Huawei within the US is being augmented by new FCC regulations.

Oliver Philippou, Research Manager – Physical Security at Omdia commented: “The semiconductor shortfall driven by geopolitics and Covid impact has affected all industries, and video surveillance is no exception. This disparity between supply and demand is expected to last until mid-2022.

Longer term Omdia expects that there will be a greater adoption of the network camera products using AI deep learning acceleration and inference at the endpoint. This will result in higher average prices of network cameras.

Chinese impact on market revenues
The Chinese video surveillance market is estimated to have grown 6.4% in 2020 compared to the global average of 2.2%. This growth is mainly attributed to the thermal body temperature solution. The market excluding such solution is estimated to have decline by 0.8%. As such, China now accounts for 50% of the global market revenues. However, a combination of Covid-19 and the completion of Xue Liang programme has resulted in declining government investment in video surveillance in China. Even so, the government investment will continue grow, all be it at a slower rate.

Tommy Zhu, Senior Analyst – Physical Security at Omdia commented: “One of the major factors that drove the China’s market growth in the past few years was government investment. Although the year of 2020 marks the completion of Xue Liang programme, the government will continue to enhance the construction of Safe China during its 14th Five-Year plan. In addition, as China is rolling out its trillions of dollars investment in new infrastructure construction, the demand for video surveillance equipment is expected to continue to grow. Besides, China’s ambitions to accelerate the transformation to a digital economy will boost the investment in both public and private sectors.”

The manufacturer-independent SySS GmbH has tested and certified the security of the MOBOTIX 7 intelligent video platform and MOBOTIX Mx6 security cameras. As a result, the leading institute for penetration tests in Germany has confirmed the best possible cybersecurity of Konica Minolta’s MOBOTIX products series.

During the tests, hardware and software components are subjected to simulated hacker attacks in several scenarios. These correspond to the current cyber attacks, which have recently led to data tapping and data hijacking worldwide. The testers of SySS GmbH are familiar with the recent attack methods on IT systems and research how to prevent the intrusion into digital infrastructures. With this exclusive know-how, SySS GmbH tests IT landscapes and looks for weaknesses and security vulnerabilities.

“The renewal of the SySS certificate for the MOBOTIX 7 platform and the Mx6 camera series, which both are part of Konica Minolta video solution services portfolio, confirms our high standards in terms of security. We only offer our customers video solution services that provide the best possible protection – not only for people, facilities, goods, grounds, or buildings but also for the data that our recordings collect,” said Shintaro Inoue, Head of Video Solutions Services, Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe.

The MOBOTIX 7 platform and the Mx6 camera series are among the market-leading systems in IoT camera applications. They are appreciated worldwide for their robustness, durability, and energy-efficient solutions. Despite the decentralised approach, the system is ONVIF and H.264 compliant.

ASSA ABLOY has signed an agreement to sell its Nordic locksmith business CERTEGO to Nalka Invest, which invests in small- and medium-sized businesses primarily in the Nordic region.

CERTEGO is a market-leading locksmith and security solutions installation business in the Nordic region. It provides planning, installation and managing of mechanical, electro-mechanical and electronic security solutions for customers across multiple verticals. CERTEGO has a network of around 70 locations with some 1,200 employees in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. The impact from the divestment on ASSA ABLOY external sales is around SEK 1.5 bn.

“Recent trends in the security solutions installation market, including the growing need to offer a comprehensive range of different solutions, has led us to reconsider the merits of continued ownership of CERTEGO. We have concluded that a divestment would allow EMEIA to focus resources in its core business. I am confident that Nalka Invest will take CERTEGO to the next level as part of their business transformation and wish them and the CERTEGO team every success in their future endeavors,” says Neil Vann, Executive Vice President of ASSA ABLOY and Head of EMEIA Division.

The transaction will have a positive effect on ASSA ABLOY´s operating margin going forward. The divestment will result in a capital loss and exit costs amounting to approximately MSEK 200.

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions and is expected to close during the third quarter of 2021.