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Video surveillance on the increase in ME

DUBAI — Business sectors in Dubai involving retail, transportation, aviation, education and financial are the target markets for a Swedish network video firm, which said that consumers are now more accepting of technology that ensures security in daily activities.

Officials of Axis Communications, a global provider of Internet protocol- or IP-based video solutions based in Lund, noted that Dubai's construction boom, ongoing airport and metro-train projects and vibrant financial activities will help hasten the company's growth. Ray Mauritsson, president and CEO of Axis, said the firm's penetration rate for network camera in the Middle East will even exceed the 50-per cent global forecast by 2011. "For Dubai and the whole region it will even be sooner than that," he said in an interview, in Copenhagen.

He said that while respecting consumer privacy is a priority among businesses, the need to ensure security through the use of video surveillance system has been taken more seriously to prevent losses as well to serve customers better. "We have a feeling that acceptance for surveillance is growing," he said. He stressed that protecting individual privacy now focuses more on restricting access to recorded material made by network camera installed in various establishments.

David Gorman, loss prevention expert at US firm David Gorman & Associates, said that "honest" customers don't mind going into a shopping store laden with surveillance cameras. It's the thieves that would mind such things, he added. Axis's sales manager for MENA (Middle East and North Africa), Baraa Al Akkad, yesterday said the company expects more clients from the retail sector, considering what experts disclosed that theft usually happens in shopping stores.

Already, Axis MENA has Fifth Saks Avenue Dubai as its biggest client in the retail sector. It has also installed camera network systems in Dubai airports. Al Akkad said earlier that the Middle East together with Europe and Africa, or EMEA, accounted for 45 per cent of Dh598.5 million ($163 million), the latest annual global sales posted by Axis.

There is no record on retail theft in Dubai and the whole UAE, but experts said there could be cases here similar to those recorded in the US and Europe, where losses incurred due to stolen goods are being passed on to consumers.

US retailers said last year they lost Dh152.75 billion ($41.6 billion) due to "shrinkage", or losses brought about by retail theft, organised retail crime, administrative error or point of sale (cashier) fraud. In Europe, shrinkage losses cost every consumer Dh370.49 (71.23 euros) in 2006. Mauritsson said that Axis's Dubai headquarters will play an important role in realising the company's goal of "5x5", the five-year expansion plan hatched in 2005.

Axis has been realising this goal with a 40-per cent year-on-year growth, according to Bodil Sonesson, the company's vice-president for sales. "And we're even executing it a bit better," she said, adding that 90 per cent of total sales are generated by network video. Sonesson said Axis now has a 15-per cent penetration rate of the Dh18.4-billion ($5 billion) global market for video surveillance equipment, which is seen to reach Dh29.4 billion ($8 billion) by 2010.