The commercial security market has been in the limelight for its growth across the Middle East for the past few years driven by increased investments and stringent regulatory policies. The demand for sophisticated security systems has seen an upswing, creating growth opportunities throughout the ecosystem. According to Frost & Sullivan’s latest report, the commercial security market in the Middle East is expected to expect double-digit growth by 2021.

Within the product segments, video surveillance accounted for a dominant share of the total market followed by access control and intruder detection. While favorable government policies facilitate demand generation, technology is playing an important role in helping to achieve better monitoring and control functions. The security market has been evolving in line with the global IT and telecom domain trends and hence is highly dynamic. Of all the counties in this region, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) leads the market with the largest share. The fall in oil prices and rationalization of investment in infrastructure projects is expected to result in a temporary slowdown in the KSA market, but is expected to revive in the long term. The upcoming Expo 2020 and FIFA World Cup 2022 have enabled investment in large projects with sizeable trickle down to the security infrastructure. Qatar is expected to see the highest CAGR growth rate followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Among the commercial security end-user sectors, hospitality is likely to experience the highest growth followed by commercial buildings. The industrial and commercial end-user sectors will hold more than 50.0% share of the total market till the end of the forecast period.
Threat from cheaper competition and tight security budgets hamper prospects for commercial security suppliers.
The deliverable indicates that despite multiple growth drivers, opportunities come with their own challenges of economic uncertainties, forcing revision in spending patterns. Meanwhile, competition from low-cost Chinese participants and decline in equipment prices have moderated the market revenue growth. Some of the low value commercial projects exhibit inclination towards the purchase of low-cost Chinese systems due to budget constraints. The entry of such participants into the security systems market intensifies the competition and forces the Tier I participants to join the price game. However, some of the established participants have resisted joining this trend and have instead focused on product innovation with value addition for users. The decline in price points has reduced the overall market revenue and also the profitability of these participants. During the short term, the squeeze in spending is expected to continue as users tend to conserve resources. Established brands will continue to have an upper hand when the total cost of ownership is taken as the procurement philosophy.

Future outlook: The market moving towards adopting transformational technologies
High-value customers in retail, healthcare, and hospitality segments have preferred using cloud-based surveillance and access control systems that provide remote management of employee credentials for multiple sites, managing building security on-the-go, and asset management.
Growing awareness of the capabilities of new generation security products and solutions, combined with the need to address infrastructure safety concerns, make the commercial security market in the Middle East promising and upbeat.