VSaaS Continues Upward Trajectory; End-User Awareness Poses Biggest Obstacle

IHS Markit estimates the world market for branded video surveillance as a service was worth $790 billion in 2015, a 13.8% increase from 2014.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – The video surveillance as a service (VSaaS) market posted slightly slower growth in 2015 than had been previously forecast, with a lack of end-user education posing the biggest challenge to VSaaS adoption rates, according to IHS Markit.

IHS estimates the world market for branded VSaaS was worth $790 billion in 2015, a 13.8% increase from 2014. Technical barriers to penetration of VSaaS have reportedly decreased markedly in recent years. The most frequently cited challenge now appears to be finding ways to increase customer awareness.

Hybrid VSaaS solutions – where both onsite and off-site storage is employed – are forecast to grow at the fastest rate from 2015 to 2020. Their increased popularity will be due to a combination of falling costs of cloud storage and increasing prevalence of cameras with on-board storage.

The residential sector will remain an important market for VSaaS. The increasing involvement of large communication and security companies with large numbers of existing residential subscribers is helping to raise the profile of VSaaS solutions.

“For much of its relatively short history, a major barrier to adoption of VSaaS has been the technology. Specifically, bandwidth limitations have restricted the number of cameras that can be deployed at a given site,” says Dominic Williams, a market analyst with IHS Markit. “This limitation has curbed the attractiveness of VSaaS for video surveillance users.”

Bandwidth constraints have not disappeared. However, the situation has improved markedly in recent years due to the proliferation of fiber networks allowing for greater bandwidth, the rise of H.265 and other improved data compression standards. Another market driver is the ongoing trend toward hybrid data storage, which enables only the most important video data to be uploaded to the cloud, thus reducing upstream bandwidth usage.


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As technological barriers have lowered, a lack of customer awareness has become the most frequently cited challenge to adoption among VSaaS providers. VSaaS is still emerging as a technology, and as such the benefits of VSaaS solutions are still being communicated to the video surveillance industry.

“Lack of knowledge may result in customers misunderstanding not only what VSaaS is, but also its value compared to other solutions,” Williams says. “Although awareness of the benefits and power of the cloud is increasing, effectively communicating the features and benefits of VsaaS solutions to the industry and consumers will be essential for success in the market.”

Along with national marketers such as ADT and other security companies, the task of increasing customer awareness will be aided by the marketing resources of telecoms and cablecos, which are becoming increasingly involved in the market, according to Williams.

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