AsiaS Access Business Growing At 16.3 Per Cent

China has become an increasingly important market for access control manufacturers. While the Chinese government has reduced its spending on infrastructure this year in an attempt to slow the rapid economic growth seen in 2004, the construction industry is still booming with apartment blocks shooting up across China’s big cities. In addition there are several major building projects in the pipeline, such as the summer Olympics in Beijing and the World Expo in Shanghai, that will drive growth for security equipment, such as access controls. Although the final security budget for the summer Olympics has not yet been fixed, the total expenditure is expected to exceed $300 million” Paul Everett, the report author at IMS research commented “Despite technology being so advanced in Asia there are still a large number of buildings that are yet to install access control equipment. In Japan for example, there are very few access control manufacturers and hence very little access control equipment is used. As a result there is huge potential for companies to move in and take advantage of this untapped market”. China is undeniably the market with the greatest potential in the 21st century for suppliers of access controls and international companies are fighting for position. Consequently China has become a fierce battlefield, with a large number of domestic and foreign security manufacturers competing for business. IMS Research forecasts that by 2009 China will emerge as the largest market in Asia for access control equipment, with 31.5 per cent of overall market share.