Government contracts are very important for the security industry, but ultimately most of them – even the largest  – should mostly serve as beta-tests and reference sites for what should be a much larger industrial/commercial and institutional market.  Over the long term, we believe commercial/industrial contracts are steadier and involve greater recurring revenues.  But, of course, during economic slowdowns it might just be a big help to depend on those Government contracts. 

On the heels of a follow-up report by the Security Industry Association (which very conservatively projects Chinese security industry spending by 30% to $11 billion in 2008), we have contacted three independent sources just back from viewing Chinese commercial and government security installations to check just which companies appear to lead the Chinese market. Our sources remind us that the government-sponsored China Public Security Guide estimates the 2008 market at over $26 billion – bigger than the SIA study, but to us clearly less independent.  Our sources are convinced that China Security & Surveillance (CSR) has major advantages in the mid-sized China security surveillance market and should be a company to watch closely.

We have done background work on a number of Chinese security companies. While we find two of the companies, a leader in fire systems and the other, a leader in geospatial surveillance software, interesting in their own right, they are both much smaller than our focus in this blog – China Surveillance & Security (CSR) – China’s leading domestic security surveillance company, and our Chinese researches reiterate that this is the company to watch.