China to Have 626 Million Surveillance Cameras Within 3 Years

This post comes courtesy of our content partners at TechNode.

China had 176 million surveillance cameras in operation last year and the speed of growth is expected to see that figure more than triple to reach 626 million by 2020, and one Chinese company has over a fifth of the world market, according to research by IHS Markit.

Various stories have emerged recently on China’s efforts to increase surveillance of its people, with the added capabilities of AI, facial and gait recognition. Beijing announced in October 2015 that it now had 100-percent coverage. However, the UK is still considered to be the most monitored country overall, with previous research showing it had 20 percent of the world’s cameras for just 1 percent of the world’s population. Though China’s networks are growing faster than any others in the world. The research estimates the market in China is currently worth USD 6.4 billion and is growing fast with a rate of 12.4 percent predicted through to 2021, compared to the US which has 50 million cameras and a market worth USD 2.9 billion growing at 0.7 percent annually.

IHS also found that one manufacturer, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, makes up 21.4 percent of the world market share of CCTV camera and video surveillance equipment, the largest supplier for six years, up from 8 percent in 2012 and 19.5 percent last year.

Hikvision has been expanding in the Americas where it now has 8.5 percent of the market, putting it in second place. The Chinese government owns a 42 percent stake in Hikvision, according to a piece by the Wall Street Journal earlier this month on the security concerns of Chinese-made cameras being used in the US. The report uncovered that Hikvision’s cameras are being used to monitor a US Army base in Missouri, in the Memphis police’s surveillance system, and even at the US embassy in Kabul.

Photos: NPR, Frank Hersey