Introduction
Image recognition technology involves processing and converting an image into relevant information. This technology and its derivatives such as facial recognition and object recognition are the latest gap-bridging technologies between the physical and the digital world. These methods of recognizing an image are used in online shopping and ecommerce, layout security and video surveillance systems, forensics and police investigations, enterprise content management, advanced driving, parking assistance, automotive security, quality management, and standard checks and sorting.
MarketsandMarkets forecasts the global image recognition market to grow from $9.65 billion in 2014 to $25.65 billion by 2019 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 21.6% from 2014 to 2019.
Adoption of Image Recognition for various applications
Content Management: Traditional methods of data storage include files, folders, and dossiers. These were used to manage documents, store data and maintain database of various other sources of information. However, with the introduction of electronic age, files and folders were replaced by floppy discs, CDs, DVDs, and other storage devices assisting easier content management. Now-a-days, image recognition technology is being deployed and is used efficiently for content management and retrieval of the increasing big data in various enterprises of various industry verticals.
Marketing and retail: In earlier times, marketing activities of goods and services was done through banners, posters, and hoardings. With the emergence of new technologies, these activities were done by radio and television broadcast and have now moved to the internet. Now-a-days, the proportion of social media marketing, online advertisements and online shopping is increasing. Many apps have been developed which are used for mobile shopping of retail and consumer products, using image recognition technology.
Traffic management: Traffic police were solely responsible to manage traffic and provide safety on roads in earlier times. These days, traffic management has become digitalized with the help of Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation, digital monitoring equipments, sensors facilitating lane and pedestrian detection, audio-visual parking assistance, and CCTV camera surveillance embedded with image recognition sensors. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) which makes use of image recognition technology are being installed in vehicles providing an interactive user interface.
Security: In earlier times, manned guards and managed security services were deployed for commercial, corporate, and governmental security. In recent times, image recognition technology along with its derivatives such as facial recognition and object recognition are used for the purpose of security and surveillance in forensics and investigation, and identity and access management.
Market trends
The adoption of image recognition technology in verticals such as retail and consumer goods sector has played a major role in online shopping on mobile devices. The technology is now being adopted in the healthcare and life sciences, BFSI and transportation and logistics industry verticals.
Lack of awareness and issues with the technological know-how are the restraints in this market.
Optical character recognition, object recognition and facial recognition are the main types of technologies which are being used in various industries where object recognition is growing at the highest pace among all.
The North American market is witnessing a rising demand for image recognition solutions in government and defense and BFSI sectors currently. Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific and the European markets provide the upcoming growth opportunities for the image recognition market.
Growth by Mergers and Acquisitions
Huge players such as Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, Honeywell are growing and expanding in this market by acquiring start-up companies or partnerships with the peers. These companies are adapting image recognition technology for the improvement of their businesses by increasing the engagement of their consumers through various image recognition applications over smartphones and Internet. Recent acquisitions include: Kooaba by Qualcomm Inc., Invensys by Schneider Electric, Vijai Electricals and VisualGraph by Pinterest in January 2014.
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