North America leads in mobile video surveillance

The global market for mobile video surveillance equipment - not counting accessories - is almost US$500 million. Of this, the Americas contributed around 70%, or US$346.6 million, of all revenue in 2012. Most of this came from the USA and Canada, making sales in these two countries more than the Europe-Middle East-Africa (US$83.3 million) and Asia (US$68.7 million) combined.

The IHS report shows that the skew towards North America comes mainly through huge sales in the police car and school bus vertical markets. This was seen in each of the previous three editions of the research, “but sales across these two verticals have pushed North America even further out in front”.

In Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA) and Asia, opportunities are growing in the areas of buses, trains and trams, and manufacturers in North America say they are investigating sales prospects in Europe.

The report predicts that by 2017, US sales will jump to US$489.0 million, with US$116.2 million for EMEA and US$91.8 million for Asia.

The report’s authors say it is reasonable to suppose that the Americas will remain by far the largest region for at least the foreseeable future, but observers shouldn’t be surprised to see faster growth in EMEA and Asia in the second half of this decade.