AV Magazine
Growing smart cities and corporate hubs are driving proAV in India
India is among the world’s fastest growing economies and is,
in fact, the third largest proAV market but a late-summer wave of Covid-19
created a downward revision in the country’s overall finances. The IMF
now projects a 10.3% 2020 GDP decline, down significantly from the 4.5% decline
that was predicted in June, which itself was down from the April projection of
a small 1.9 percent increase.
The good news is that India’s long-term economic fundamentals are strong. AVIXA anticipates a strong (8.8%) rebound in 2021 and full recovery in 2022. Long-term growth is expected to stay nearly as dynamic, settling in at 7.4% per year from 2023-2025.
“The brightest aspect of proAV in India is its long-term growth, which is expected to slightly exceed GDP and increase at 8% a year from 2023-2025,” says Jonathan Seller, senior director development, APAC, AVIXA.
Several AV firms predict that business will return to pre-Covid levels by the end of 2021. “We’re investing a lot of time and effort in joint marketing and promotions to support our local partners,” says MediaStar Systems regional sales director Mark Stanborough. “Unlike other markets, though, where we’ve seen a real push for expanding the use of digital signage, we’re not seeing that in India. It was already quite heavily used and judging from the orders we’ve started to receive in the last couple of months, demand remains at the same level.”
Hospitality is expected to pick up towards the second half of 2021, and tourism is expected to witness an immediate jump as people across India are keen to travel, reports Karan Kathuria, director (Asia, Oceania and SAARC), Renkus-Heinz. “Likewise, the house of worship market is asking for advanced audio and video streaming solutions due to the impact the pandemic has had on Indians who have a very strong religious connection.”
While the market has started to recover, challenges remain given the current uncertainty. “Spending has moderated in the corporate vertical for AV systems,” reports Sanket Sawant, sales director, SAARC and ANZ, Atlona. “As workers return to offices, businesses have put thought into how their AV infrastructure will need to change to keep people safe and healthy. We expect this will have a direct impact on increased corporate AV spend through 2021.”
Girish Narayanan of Resurgent - a PSNI Certified Solution Provider founded in Bangalore with offices nationwide - comments, “The pandemic had its effects, however, India’s economy continues to grow. It is just a matter of time before India’s private and public sector bounce back with its full power. Covid has brought a major chunk of the population closer to new technologies. AV has increasingly become a part of our daily lives now.”
He explains that the Indian government have become early adopters of digital technology which will open opportunities for companies like Resurgent. “As the government's focus on e-governance gathers pace, rapid distribution of key messages to the public will be a basic requirement for all institutions, creating numerous opportunities for the AV industry,” he says. “We can provide high-end AV design and build integration services by bringing global standards to the Indian market.”
One product of India’s strong pre-2020 growth is a burgeoning middle class—and all the AV demands that brings alongside. Hospitality, retail, and venues and events verticals will be buoyed in the long term by this increase in middle-income consumers.
Increasingly networked
Connectivity is another AV driver here, suggests Seller; “As more of the country gains high-speed internet access, expect spending increases in solution areas like content distribution, media and conferencing and collaboration.”
“India is increasingly networked to itself and the rest of the world,” agrees Samuel A. Recine, vp of sales, AV/IT Group, Matrox. “The beauty about the constantly improving breadth of solutions to tackle communications and presentation challenges is that it is becoming easier to reach all sectors of the economy.”
He adds, “India has an above-average software development capability. As AV/IT environments increasingly blur, these skills are particularly strategic. Customers and integrators in India are also concerned with proprietary implementations by manufacturers and are pushing for progressive thinking about product and platforms being more useful and interoperable with each other through open standards.”
While many leading AV companies have established a presence in India, it is a little early to state that India is an ‘organised’ proAV market. “The uniqueness of India is its diversity and scalability,” says Kathuria. “With 65% of the population based in rural areas – which is only now experiencing a boom in data and digitalisation – it is still too early to say the market is ‘mature’ in regard to AV.”
The government’s flagship projects, ‘Make In India’ launched
in 2014 and ‘Digital India’ in 2015 are beginning to deliver on the country’s
intent of becoming a global tech superpower.
Kathuria says, “With internet access now reaching every corner of India, data has become a commodity. This is an initiative the Indian government has driven toward very seriously as it dovetails with its vision of smart cities.”
Currently there are 100 smart city projects with 12 on fast tracked for development. “Keep an eye on smart cities,” says Sawant. “We’re also seeing projects in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities which call for an upgraded AV infrastructure. This also opens up new projects for tourism, such as at the Statue of Unity project now taking shape (of Indian statesman Vallabhbahi Patel in the state of Gujarat and, at 182 metres, the world's tallest). All of this is important for the government, which is focused on bringing more tourists and visitors to India.”
A “significantly large deployment” of AV technologies is an integral part of these smart cities, agrees Kathuria; “All global players should be looking at this endeavour. India is further being perceived as one of the most viable service industry investment hubs, with many of the world’s largest companies now having some presence in the country related to manufacturing, assembling, software or digitalisation.”
The government plans to invest heavily in infrastructure, mainly in highways, renewable energy, and urban transport over the next two years. Its smart cities will be supplemented with Transit Oriented Development, public transport and last mile connectivity. Last October, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) announced plans to upgrade runways at seven domestic and international airports across the country by March 2022.
“Because public address systems form the backbone for all major transport hubs, Renkus-Heinz believe that providing pro audio solutions that offer agility, redundancy and scalability to the transport sector will be crucial in the year ahead,” says Kathuria.
Education home and away
AVIXA records fresh investment by central and state governments in digital classroom technologies. “The long-term goal is to find consistency and efficiency in the development and delivery of the school curriculum,” says Seller. “During lockdown, government K-6 students were taught via terrestrial television and radio. The current academic year has been completely remote, with private schools K-12 and colleges and universities using online technologies for tasks and assessment. Pupils from kindergarten to university are now continuing distance education using online platforms.”
The trade body itself has been conducting a series of virtual training for certification while Infocomm India 2020 went virtual as well. The show saw a “large number” of participants engaged for three days of conferences, live product demos and also “AI driven business matchmaking.”
Altona has also won business enabling remote education. Its PTZ cameras, extenders and switchers have increasingly been specified to support hybrid learning environments and online lectures. The firm won a significant project with a technology institute that is on the verge of installation, which it will announce in the new year.
There may be considerable demand for remote comms but connectivity is a limiting factor outside of the major metros and business parks. Metro areas are not necessarily the go-to locations for populations which used to migrate from rural or tier 2 and tier 3 cities to look for employment. Altona says it has won business integrating with software and cloud-based conferencing services like Zoom and Teams, both in corporate and education environments.
“Most IT companies are adapting a work from home model but the work from home culture is new to India beyond a very small percentage of the population,” Sawant says.
Similarly, Renkus-Heinz recognises the “huge upsurge” in online education, but says parents are realizing the value that in-person coursework adds towards the complete development of students. “The trend of students and teachers embracing new technology means we are also hearing interest in new technology within classrooms as well,” says Kathuria. “This makes the education sector a hot vertical going forward.”
Growing centres of capital
The pandemic has negatively impacted on micro, small and medium enterprises while larger organisations have seemed to survive the storm. Evidence from MediaStar suggest activity is driven by corporate multinationals and global banks, opening new offices in the larger cities. Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi are hot spots while Bengaluru has become a tech hub where many distributors, AV partners and consultants are based. This corporate activity provides good opportunities for office/board room fit outs.
“On a global scale London and New York have always led the way when it came to demanding new AV tech, but the financial hubs in Mumbai and Pune give both of those cities a run for their money,” says Stanborough. “There is also an interest in British-designed solutions, which are regarded highly.”
Corporate projects are growing more complex. “We’re seeing more large enterprise deployments involving UC platforms,” says Sawant. “As a result, we’re seeing greater demand and reliance on training, certification, and best practices for AV standards.”
The influx of large offices has led to a higher standard of specifications and requirements for AV installations. Andy Lee, who covers the region for Datapath, says distributors and integrators have become more professional as a result. “As the AV industry recovers from Covid we expect to see demand for higher standards in the region increase further.
“The opportunities are vast and the rewards could be great but you have to take into account local cultural differences, the distance from your HQ, time difference and competition from Indian-made as well as cheap Asian imported products,” he advises. “Be aware that there are not one or two major cities to potentially visit and cover. There are potentially five or six and cross-country takes time.”
Covid-19 has meant less location shooting for the country’s industrious film and TV sector with demand “moving heavily” towards virtual production and virtual studios, according to Tom Rockhill, disguise CSO. “Demand for disguise’s xR technology has spiked massively in 2020, and we’re working closely with our local partners and Epic Games to provide the best possible backbone for LED stage environments possible.”
Peerless-AV’s business has grown more than 50% year on year in India by targeting “high quality, premium” products to a niche category of high-end customers, mainly in the corporate space. It just appointed Pro Radio Networks as its new local distributor and is already helping Peerless to win projects with multinationals moving overseas branches to major cities in India.
“The majority of tenders received are from multinationals in the region, and the technical expertise falls to integrators and consultants who are specifying solutions direct to end customers,” says Justin Joy, Peerless-AV’s senior sales manager. “There’s a lot more business in India to be had but it’s harder to penetrate this customer base owing to their price conscious culture and use of local fabricators resulting in a lower quality product. The corporate sector is highly advanced compared to retail and government, currently.”
India clearly has considerable potential and but also challenges
associated with that potential. “We are looking at 2021 as a year of immense
opportunity,” says Kathuria. “We see India as a very unique and strategic
market, and we’re committed to delivering much needed engineering expertise and
services to the Indian AV Industry, on par with global standards.”
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