Frost: Card-Based Systems, Biometric Applications Spur Asia-Pacific EACS Market

September 17, 2007 // Published as a news service by IHS

According to Frost & Sullivan, the sheer size of the market, combined with low penetration levels, make for huge market potential.

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Other factors affecting growth of EACS in the region include the advent of Internet protocol (IP)-based surveillance systems, development of the property sector in Asia-Pacific and fewer biometrics regulatory issues in Asia-Pacific (as compared to other markets such as the U.S. and U.K.).

Recent analysis from Frost & Sullivan of the EACS market in selected Asia-Pacific countries found revenues totaled $0.50 billion in 2006, with estimates to reach $1.34 billion in 2013.

EACS have been growing in importance the last 10 years, largely due to the sophistication and increased security offered by them and also the flexibility in their deployment that provides numerous reconfiguring options to customers, analysts said.

Additionally, the overriding need to reduce fraud across government and commercial settings is boosting the demand for EACS. Both governments and corporations are deploying access control technology for applications ranging from time and attendance to physical access.

Among EACS product types, keypads account for the highest revenue percent share in the EACS markets examined by Frost & Sullivan. However, analysts said this is likely to change by 2013, with some countries expected to leapfrog keypads and go to card-based or biometrics-based technologies that provide higher security.

Analysts said access cards - comprising proximity and contactless - are likely to experience increased adoption rates, with their share expected to increase from 32.6% in 2008 to almost 60.0% by 2013. Demand for biometrics is also likely to increase due to technology advancement, increasing concerns over security and the growing urgency to catch up with the Western markets.

Key restraints for the markets' growth include high investment and the cost of integration of the technology with the existing backend system. As there are no local integrators in the Asia-Pacific region, analysts said there is a dearth of quality integration services leading to poor market penetration for many technologies.

Employee ID projects for private organizations do not enjoy the same economies of scale as government projects, due to the lower rate of card shipments, which leads to increased deployment costs, analysts said. As a result, the return on investment (ROI) for medium-sized companies is relatively low.

Market growth is expected to be driven primarily by cards-based systems and biometric applications. Analysts said offering competitive prices to end-users is likely to be a key success factor due to increasing competition from lower cost providers, especially those from China and Taiwan.

Source: Frost & Sullivan.