Boom predicted for global freight container security market

Global consulting firm ABI Research predicts that the worldwide market for freight container security and tracking services will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 27% through 2016. Projected revenues from this market segment should expand from $212 million today to $690 million in five years, the firm said.

“With a lot of regulations and legislation being introduced in the aftermath of 9/11, expectations that this industry would finally take off were high, prompting many vendors to enter this market with advanced solutions,” noted Dominique Bonte, ABI’s group director for telematics and navigation, in a new study of the container market put together by his company.

“While RFID [radio frequency identification] based solutions at port yards are becoming more established – at least in North America and Western Europe – uptake of more advanced GPS-based solutions has been disappointing, despite several solutions having been made available by vendors such as SkyBitz, DB Schenker, Starcom, and Pointer Telocation – mainly for the intermodal market,” he added.

At the same time, Bonte said end-to-end visibility, monitoring, and tracking services are becoming more important in an increasingly competitive and security-challenged container transportation industry, where cheaper and safer container transport is urgently needed.