The global video surveillance market saw renewed growth in 2025, driven by stronger demand in the Americas and increasing price pressures across components, with supply chain delays likely to reshape spending and upgrading patterns in 2026.
Novaira Insights says the global video surveillance market regained momentum in 2025, helped by stronger spending in the Americas and a softer, but still negative, year in China. In its 2026 edition of “The World Market for Video Surveillance Hardware and Software”, the research firm said worldwide equipment revenue rose 3% last year, up from almost no growth in 2024, with the US and Canada together advancing 9.8%. Novaira said the result reflected firmer demand for network cameras, software and cloud-linked systems, which tend to carry higher margins than basic hardware.
China remained the main drag on the market. Novaira said the country’s professional video surveillance business fell 4% in 2025, marking a fourth consecutive annual decline, as large state-backed projects stayed well below their earlier peaks. Even so, the firm said the downturn was less severe than it had expected and now sees a modest rebound in 2026 as funding shifts and higher average selling prices begin to lift revenue. China still accounts for about 36% of global surveillance revenue and retains the industry’s largest installed base, but Novaira said the market is increasingly being shaped by replacement and upgrade cycles rather than rapid new deployment.
The sharper near-term story is pricing. Novaira said surging demand from AI data centres has tightened supplies of high-bandwidth memory, DRAM, NAND flash and enterprise-grade hard drives, creating a broader component squeeze that is already affecting surveillance manufacturers. Lead times have stretched from the usual four to six weeks to as long as 12 to 52 weeks, and vendors have begun passing through higher input costs with multiple price increases. Josh Woodhouse, Novaira’s lead analyst, said the impact began to show by late 2025 and would make 2026 unusual because revenue growth in some markets may come more from price than from unit volume.
That dynamic could support top-line growth while also pressuring demand, especially in price-sensitive markets and developing economies. Novaira forecasts the global market will expand 8.2% in 2026 to reach $28 billion, but it also expects customers to scrutinise total cost of ownership more closely, comparing cloud and on-premises systems and weighing lower-cost camera formats against fixed budgets. For integrators and end users, the practical implication is a year of tighter allocation, longer waits for NVRs and storage hardware and more difficult trade-offs on specification as AI-related demand continues to ripple through the supply chain.
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