New European markets opening for fire installs

The report, from IMS Research, says that one of the factors driving this growth is the introduction of IP-based products that allow fire detection systems to be more closely integrated with security and facility management systems.

The report predicts that the Europe, Middle East and Africa market for control panels will be worth £168.7m by 2010, with over 80 per cent derived from analogue addressable and network panels.

IMS analyst James McManus said: "From a price/performance perspective, analogue addressable panels are very popular. They have more sophisticated features than the conventional types and are proven to reduce the number of false alarms. Falling prices and the increased availability of lower-end models are enticing more companies to install them."

IMS says that technology innovation in the fire detection market is slow paced when compared with other areas of the security industry, partly because of the extensive legislation that products must adhere to.

Aspirating smoke detectors represent another growth opportunity in the fire detection market, according to the report. IMS Research forecasts that the market for ASDs will grow much faster than all the other detector markets, with annual growth of around seven to eight per cent per annum.

"There is already a significant market for these devices in mission critical applications due to their ability to identify the by-products of a fire in its very early stages," McManus said.

In the notification products market, IMS Research is predicting strong growth for voice evacuation systems, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.6 per cent.