A significant partnership agreement has recently been entered into between the Italian Comelit Group – which operates worldwide in the design and manufacture of video door entry, home automation, video surveillance and access control systems – and the Bulgarian Teletek Electronics company specialising in the development and manufacture of fire detection and anti-intrusion systems.

This agreement comes after a long and fruitful period of collaboration that saw Teletek Electronics develop a complete range of fire detection products and equipment for Comelit. Reciprocal satisfaction and trust from the bases for entering into a new partnership that will see the two companies grow synergistically whilst maintaining their individuality at a strategic, organisational, productive and sales level.

Comelit Group’s CEO, Edward Barzasi, explained in detail the decision to gain a strategic capital shareholding in Teletek Electronics, aimed at maximising the synergies between the two companies, resulting in tangible advantages also in favour of their clientèle.

“This shareholding in the Comelit Group sees us enter the ranks amongst the top technological players in the international market for professional fire alarm and anti-intrusion systems. In fact, in addition to our own know-how, we can now count on Teletek Electronics’ skills, having worked in this specific market for almost 30 years,” says Barzasi. “One benefit of this operation will be Comelit’s quality, with the introduction of innovative solutions that will complement the broad and structured range of anti-intrusion, access control and video surveillance systems already offered. The package of over 2,500 products is flanked by excellent after-sale support services, being the hallmark of our company. For our customers, there is then the certainty of interfacing with a single partner throughout all phases of the purchasing process.”

There is also great satisfaction for Teletek Electronics which—through its founder Valentin Stoitzev, as Chairman of the Board—has announced that the new partnership is perfectly in line with the corporate mission of brand development and market expansion. “This agreement enables Teletek Electronics to increase its investments on several fronts: the internal organisation and strengthening of the sales network in terms of R&D, accelerating the development of new products that will be offered to the market under the Teletek brand.”

Precisely as a function of the significant growth plan for Teletek, also supported by the Comelit Group’s resources, a huge investment has already been planned for the construction of new premises, with an increase in the spaces and doubling of the production capacity in respect of the current situation, to better serve the 75 markets worldwide.

In addition to the synergistic growth, Barzasi and Stoitzev reaffirm the shared intention not to alter the individuality of the two companies, which will maintain their respective brands and commercial structures.

This September marks Hikvision Europe’s 10th year since the establishment of the European head office in the Netherlands. The company is proud to look back on its impressive past development and thanks its partners and customers for their loyal support. It is also taking the opportunity to look to the future with plans for expanding its head office and strengthening opportunities for supporting partners.

10 years is a significant milestone for Hikvision Europe. The company achieved dramatic development, both regarding business operations as well as with its employees. From just a few people, the company’s workforce has grown to over 300 dedicated employees serving customers all over Europe. In addition to the establishment of the European head office in the Netherlands, Hikvision Europe opened 8 branch offices in Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and in Romania over the past 10 years. Besides the branch offices, the company established sales offices in Finland, Sweden, Portugal and Belgium. Yet, the existing head office with its 2000m2 of office space and 4500m2 of warehouse space has proven to be at capacity. Plans for an additional building that will double the space available and consultations with the employees are finished and construction will commence by the end of this year. In the words of Hikvision Europe’s General Manager Derek Yang: “The company has grown from tiny nut to big oak.”

Hikvision places great emphasis on its partners and customers. “Our greatest strength is our smooth running ecosystem that connects our customers with our innovative technical knowhow, technical support team, product and solution design capability, strong manufacturing power and our passionate sales network,” says Yang. To date, the company counts more than 600 distributor partners and more than 30,000 installer partners all over Europe. This reflects Hikvision Europe’s longstanding focus on always putting their customers at the center of their activities. “We also want to take this opportunity to thank all our partners for supporting Hikvision in the past 10 years,” Yang continues. “To win the respect from the market and our customers and to bring our business close to our customers is an accomplishment that we have worked long and hard to achieve and it would not have been possible without our valued partners.”

Looking to the future, Yang’s vision for the next 10 years is becoming clear: “My predecessor Jiangfeng Zhi founded Hikvision Europe and lay a solid foundation. When I took over as General Manager of Hikvision Europe, I aimed to restructure the organization into a ‘country-oriented’ system. For the future, I want to expand our business – for example by establishing a local Research and Development division; by setting up a multi-field partner ecosystem; by making our business range more flexible and wider; and by creating more opportunities for our employees, our partners and our customers. But first, let’s start by expanding our Hikvision Europe office buildings to make room for our coming growth.”

Assa Abloy has signed an agreement to acquire Lux-Ident, a leading provider of radio frequency identification (RFID) components based in the Czech Republic.

“Lux-Ident is a strategic technological addition to the Assa Abloy Group. The company reinforces our current offering within RFID components. The acquisition of Lux-Ident considerably enhances the Group´s position within smart components and will provide complementary growth opportunities,” says Nico Delvaux, President and CEO of Assa Abloy.

“Our proven leadership in RFID technology positions HID as a premier source of components for a wide variety of RFID use cases and IoT applications. The acquisition of Lux-Ident further optimises our portfolio with more ways to offer customisation in both large and small volume projects,” says Stefan Widing, Executive Vice President and Head of HID Global. “Expanding our presence in Central and Eastern Europe with Lux-Ident will further enhance HID’s ability to serve customers locally while extending our RFID technology into emerging markets.”

Lux-Ident was founded in 2002 and has some 145 employees. The main office is located in Lanškroun, Czech Republic. Sales for 2019 are expected to reach about EUR 17 million and the acquisition will be neutral to EPS from start.

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2019.

According to a new market report published by Marketsandarkets, the smart building market size is expected to grow from USD 60.7 billion in 2019 to USD 105.8 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 11.7% during the forecast period. The major drivers for the smart buildings market include the rising adoption of IoT-enabled building management systems, raising awareness of space utilisation and increased industry standards and regulations.

The Security and Emergency Management solution in the solution type segment is expected to lead the smart buildings market in 2019.

IoT consulting services help in refining the business processes of organisations and are used for formulating different strategies, developing use cases, planning roadmaps, assessing technologies, and framing IoT architectures. The providers of IoT consulting services ensure development and implementation of the appropriate IoT applications and architecture in organisations. They guide companies to create new IoT infrastructures to enhance their existing systems. The providers of IoT consulting services also help non-IT companies with minimal expertise to understand IoT technology. IoT consulting services can be classified into technology consulting services, business consulting services, and operational consulting services.

The industrial building segment is expected to grow at the fastest growth rate during the forecast period. Industrial buildings are often large and have many moving parts. Smart industrial building solutions automate building temperature control, security, and maintenance for more efficient property management through various mobile computing devices, such as mobile devices and computers.

The analysts predict that it will be the North American market that will lead the smart buildings market during the forecast period. The North American market has witnessed the emergence of latest smart building solutions that leverage new technologies, such as IoT, big data, cloud computing, data analytics, deep learning, and artificial intelligence, for saving energy, reducing operational expenditures, increasing occupancy comfort, and meeting increasingly stringent global regulations and sustainability standards. Moreover, North America is a technologically advanced region in the world due to the rapid adoption of emerging technologies by the organisations based there. Furthermore, the US and Canada are prominent countries contributing to technological development in this region; for instance, US organisations are heavily investing into smart building measures, such as building controls and building systems integration, to leverage energy efficiency and energy storage and deliver smarter, safer, and more sustainable buildings while the Canadian government is taking initiatives to support Canada’s commitment to protecting the environment and its resources by making federal buildings more energy-efficient and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, driving the growth of smart buildings.

The major vendors amongst those named by Marketsandmarkets and covered in the smart building market report include Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Cisco, Hitachi, Siemens, IBM, Schneider Electric, Intel, Huawei, and ABB.

IFSEC is the world’s leading portfolio of security content and events, hosting shows in the United Kingdom, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines. Soon, the IFSEC brand will extend into mainland Europe with the launch of IFSEC Europe, a brand-new biennial security event providing a new gateway to the European integrated security market.

Taking place for the first time on 20-22 September 2021 at RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, IFSEC Europe will create a pan-European home for integrated security, fire safety and intelligent buildings professionals in one of Europe’s most dynamic and accessible capitals.

Co-located alongside Intelligent Buildings Europe, the new event will complement IFSEC’s flagship show IFSEC International, which will continue to take place annually at ExCeL London. This expansion is the result of a three-year research project to find the next hub for IFSEC’s global security community, designed to bring the expertise, prestige and comprehensiveness of the UK show to continental Europe.

IFSEC has established itself as a widely-respected hub for launching products and solutions, as well as showpiece events such as 2019’s National Surveillance Camera Day. In 2019 it welcomed over 80,000 visitors across all of its events from over 120 countries. IFSEC Europe will better connect the major players in security manufacturing and distribution with key end-users, installers, integrators and consultants across mainland Europe.

Responding to shifts in the European and global economy, IFSEC Europe offers the UK, continental and international security professionals a platform from which to penetrate the European market. It’s a unique opportunity for firms to source products, discover insights and generate new business connections in one of Europe’s largest conference venues.

VCA Technology, a UK video analytics provider, announced its global strategic partnership with camera manufacturer CPRO to integrate its AI-driven security surveillance and analytics solutions. This collaboration brings to market the widest range of analytics cameras currently available from one manufacturer, as well as providing customers with complementary servers, appliances and cloud-based analytics software.

The agreement enables both organisations to offer pioneering solutions to facilitate state-of-the-art video monitoring and threat detection for businesses across a diverse range of industry sectors. The new cameras will enable greater efficiency by reducing set up time thanks to simplified configuration, which will be applicable across the entire range. They will also leverage AI-powered deep learning in order to increase quality of image analysis, drive precision in detection and minimise false alarms.

“This partnership signals our ambition – not only to provide our customers with the premier security infrastructure available, but to significantly grow our business in a fiercely competitive market through our new Secubest VCA brand of products. With a growing demand and need for intelligent analytics which drive value across all areas of the business, this agreement gives our customers that extra edge in terms of security provision” said YS Lee, CEO of CPRO.

Equally, CPRO will benefit from VCA’s expertise in video analytics and market-leading solutions, with over 450,000 active channels globally. It will leverage VCA’s innovative edge video technology and cloud-based AI detection capabilities to launch the Secubest product line in Europe for the first time.

Kevin Waterhouse, Managing Director of VCA said: “Partnering with CPRO not only means working with a another major player in the CCTV industry but also strengthens our position as a leading provider of analytics at the edge.. Their wide range of cameras complements the range and flexibility of our analytics and their plans to launch in Europe are very exciting. In addition, our Server, Appliance and Cloud based products means that our mutual customers have the widest range of analytics and AI options.

The extensive choice of encoders, sensors, cameras and other CCTV tools will empower customers to select the most appropriate solution, depending on their specific business needs. From a security standpoint, customers will be able to effectively protect external boundaries from potential threats and use calibration to avoid false alarms – typically triggered by wildlife in rural areas, and by high footfall in urban locations. Businesses in the retail sector will be able to track conversion, analyse store traffic by area to improve product displays, and monitor till queues to optimise staff. Finally, in the field of transport, the new solutions can help manage traffic flow and ensure real time alerts for accidents, detect illegal activity, and count vehicles transiting to maximise car park capacity.

The global door phone market size is expected to reach USD 5.1 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., expanding at a CAGR of 5.7% over the forecast period. The market is driven by consumer spending on security and safety products for home, along with rise in demand from the multi storey residential buildings. Moreover, cost of keeping manual security at every place in a premise is much costlier when compared to automated security devices, thereby resulting in increased sale of door phones in the market.

The researchers found that the market is driven by an increasing number of smart and automated homes in Asia Pacific, along with availability of cost effective products from various regional manufacturers. It can also be integrated with the central security system of the building, thereby making home monitoring easier and safer. These products are in high demand for physically handicapped and older people at home when physically attending the door can be difficult. The invention of high-end video door phones is becoming substantially more popular and it can also provide live conversation with the person without even opening the main door.

The adoption of smart technology and smart control of devices with the help of smart phones is also one of the major reasons behind the growing need for automated home security systems. Door phones connected with smart phones have special features, which allow users to control visitor access even when they are not at home. Additionally, the advancements in door phones including the addition of security alarms, quick access through biometric sensors, and smart control all provide growth opportunities for the market.

Geographically, the Asia Pacific region is expected to expand at the highest CAGR of 7.6% over the forecast period. The market is driven by an increasing number of construction activities in the residential sector. Moreover, growing concerns over safety and security of people living alone in their houses are driving this market. Commercial spaces are also installing these devices at various locations to provide an advanced level of safety and security to employees. Audio door phones accounted for the largest market share in 2018 owing to their increased usage in commercial spaces.

Various strategic initiatives such as new product launches, expansion, and mergers and acquisitions are taken by the key players in order to increase the brand presence in the market. Some of the key players in the business are Aiphone, Panasonic, Fermax, 1byone, Honeywell, ABB, and Legrand.