Following this week’s announcement that Tyco intends to acquire Broadview Security (formerly Brinks), there has been a lot of chatter on what this means for the industry and whether other mergers will follow.
One topic of particular interest has been the share of the alarm monitoring market that Tyco, and its security business ADT, will have following this acquisition. In response, IMS Research stated that ADT and Broadview will have a combined share of around 50% of the residential alarm monitoring market. This analysis measured revenue generated by companies owning and operating a central station, but did not include revenues generated by alarm installers that use wholesale central stations to monitor their own accounts. That being said, IMS asks – how will this acquisition affect the customer?
Here’s how IMS Research sees it. From the customers’ point of view, the residential alarm monitoring market will remain fairly fragmented. There are thousands of independent alarm dealers in North America using third party central stations to monitor their customers. When these independent dealers are included in the analysis, ADT and Broadview account for only around 30% of the residential alarm monitoring market. Niall Jenkins, IMS research analyst commented “Despite the economic situation, the US alarm monitoring market has continued to perform reasonably well with low single digit growth in 2009. The market offers long term growth potential and we expect more acquisitions to follow in the coming years.”
In related news, it has been reported that Protection One is exploring a potential sale of the company.
[...] Alarm Monitoring Market Will Retain Its Independence despite Tyco – Broadview Deal [...]