The demand for security systems has seen an upswing in the GCC countries. Government regulations in place for compulsory installation of surveillance systems in public areas coupled with a surging construction market are among the factors that have led to the growth of the video surveillance market in the GCC region.

Additionally, the growing tourism industry in the region has resulted in increased construction projects in various sectors, primarily hospitality, government, transportation and retail. According to 6Wresearch,  a global market research and consulting firm, GCC video surveillance market is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate ) of about 10% during 2017-23.

In an interview with Construction Sites, Kamal Mokrani, Global Vice President, InfiNet Wireless, talks about the driving force behind  the surveillance market in the GCC , the  latest security trends and  the current state of the market, among other topics.

 QCS: The video surveillance market is booming in the GCC countries.  What is the driving force behind this?

Kamal Mokrani:  Growing safety and security concerns, rising crime rates and terror threats are some of the key factors driving the growth of the video surveillance market in many regions of the world, including the GCC countries. Over the past four years, we at InfiNet Wireless have witnessed an increasing demand for homeland security in many Middle East countries.  Some of them are faced with the mass migration of communities across borders seeking safer havens.

Continuously decreasing prices of cameras and associated video analytics have also resulted in an increase in the adoption of video surveillance deployments across the GCC region, mainly fuelled by the government sector.

QCS: Please tell us about the latest security trends in the GCC market.

Mokrani: The GCC video surveillance market is currently going through a major transition phase, with many existing and new service providers ditching legacy analogue surveillance systems and replacing them with newer and more advanced IP-based digital systems.

New applications for video surveillance are emerging, especially when combined with other applications related to deploying solutions for smart cities.

The GCC public safety market will undoubtedly benefit from several major technical developments that are starting to make their way into the wider security market. The most important consideration for the public safety market, for instance, is the ability to receive metadata dynamically and process it with analytics to provide immediate responses and actions, an area where InfiNet Wireless is very active.

To address such increasing needs for security, we have enhanced our existing wireless solutions to carry even more data within the same spectrum and provide high definition video streams to allow all the usual analytics (e.g. face recognition, ANPR, etc.) to be undertaken by the relevant decision-makers or law enforcement agencies. The nature of these developments and applications require that the video surveillance infrastructure to actually feed very good quality data into the overall monitoring and management processes.

QCS: How would you describe the current state of the market for video surveillance systems and services in Qatar and the GCC countries?

Mokrani: Driven by the safety concerns described above, we see major projects being launched by various countries of the GCC region; Saudi Arabia and Qatar, for example, are spending heavily on various types of security equipment and deploying a large number of video surveillance systems throughout their respective territories.

QCS: Which markets segments, for example, commercial office space, retail, healthcare, etc  have seen noticeably healthy customers of video surveillance and why?

Mokrani: Based on our very recent experience in the GCC region, we have seen most of the video surveillance spending come from the government sector. There has also been significant growth in the commercial segment of the market, and we expect this to continue well into the future, with demand for video security systems coming from large and small retail businesses aiming to reduce robbery and inventory loss.

We have worked very closely with financial institutions and construction companies deploying video surveillance systems to provide security to new building sites, monitoring customer and staff activities, securing cash transactions and management, etc.

On a more general note, we expect the development of safe cities in the GCC region to continue for many years to come, with an increased urgency from those cities yet to adopt a smart city approach. This concept is based on a consolidated IT and communications platform which combines public-safety information from different sources obtained through a multitude of sensors, and multi-agency collaboration.

QCS: What is new on the video surveillance product side?

Mokrani: The video surveillance industry is ever-changing, with new players coming on to the scene all the time and striving to come up with the next big thing in access control, video streaming and management, as well as monitoring and control centers.

The technological advances seen recently in video surveillance with video analytics are allowing law enforcement agencies and decision makers of all types to improve their response times to incidents of all kinds.

Being more available and reachable in the market, manufacturers are introducing more cameras with embedded analytics capabilities.

From advanced multi-directional cameras to intelligent systems and other emerging technology, today’s video surveillance industry is poised to take IP cameras to the next level.

The future growth of the video surveillance market in the GCC region will be mainly fuelled by new product releases as well as continued focus on how new video products will potentially integrate with intrusion detection, access control and wireless communication technology to create complete solutions for service providers and end users alike.

The security industry, in general, is seeing trends in the increased use of omnidirectional cameras, video analytics, video resolution and cloud-based surveillance, making the future of video surveillance virtually endless in possibilities.

QCS: What are the challenges you see for wireless video surveillance vendors and how has your company overcome them?

Mokrani: The use of any wireless technology across the GCC region for video surveillance applications is often hampered by regulatory barriers which have made it difficult for companies like InfiNet Wireless and service providers of all types to deploy the latest wireless video platforms. There are still many barriers in the take-up of new technologies across the region that need to be overcome for wireless solutions to be truly adopted.

Airwaves are a scarce resource and they have to be managed properly in order to protect frequency licence owners and ensure the minimum level of disruption to their businesses.

Without proper regulation, the wireless space will quickly become a “radio jungle” with levels of interference that defy physics and operational ambitions of the service providers, in effect resulting in nobody truly benefitting from adopting such technologies.

Despite all these challenges, we have had a number of success stories within the GCC region that have started to shape the wireless market in many countries of the region.

One of our most successful deployment was in Cairo, Egypt’s largest commercial hub and the busiest in Northern Africa. Taking advantage of a government incentive to significantly improve the security of its citizens and tourists, we were able to offer Cairo and its people a modern infrastructure deployed throughout the entire city in an effort to not only make the city a safer place to be in, but also one with improved air quality through dynamic road traffic monitoring and management.

QCS: Are there any technologies that are helping to boost video surveillance sales or changing the market in any way?

Mokrani: The video surveillance industry is made up of a complex ecosystem that includes cameras, storage devices, wired or wireless transmission links, management and monitoring software, professional services, etc.

Today’s video security solutions are much more streamlined than in previous years and can easily adapt to existing and new systems.

As the industry is now past the analogue/IP point and the majority of installations are IP based with improved image resolution, enhanced performance, lower bandwidth and greater return on investment, deploying video surveillance systems is becoming increasingly easier and more efficient, offering plenty of opportunities to all players in the industry.

QCS: Security cameras in public places, it is claimed, violate privacy rights. According to your opinion, how could we make balance utility with privacy?

Mokrani: Video surveillance, in general, involves the monitoring of people and assets from a remote location in order to follow their activities and movements in a dynamic fashion, and ultimately ensure their security and integrity.

With the rising threat of terrorist attacks and other crimes across the region and increasing cases of inventory losses, video surveillance has become a necessary tool in security systems, aiming to avert the loss of lives and damage or theft of valuable assets.

QCS: Where would you see the wireless video surveillance market in Qatar and the GCC countries after five years from now?

Mokrani: We expect that the video surveillance market across the entire GCC region will continue to grow, thanks to the adoption by many service providers of new technologies (cloud services and other analytics technologies) and security systems, all aimed at protecting economies and infrastructure from criminal activities and terror attacks.

Similarly, the decline of IP camera prices and the presence of big players are important factors that are expected to drive the video surveillance market in the region.

Qatar is currently undertaking several projects, especially in the infrastructure sector such as airports, highway systems, stadia for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, etc. These projects are all expected to require high definition surveillance systems that can capture clear images any time of the day or night.

Qatar Construction Sites, May 2017