Market Overview

In FY2020, a state of emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily interrupted many installation projects that were under consideration at each user company. This led many of conventional cloud-based image analytic solution vendors for retail stores to withdraw or to scale down the business, causing the market to shrink. The image analytic solutions market for retail stores in FY2020 declined to 78.2 percent of the size of the previous fiscal year.

In FY2021, as newly-entered Edge-AI-based image analytic solutions for retail stores have started the full promotions, and as those installation projects having suspended have resumed and are increasing at user companies, the market is expected to revive, boosted by increasing demand at consumer-goods GMS enjoying strong sales from stay-home consumption and by the influence of full-fledged OMO (Online Merges with Offline) driven by ecommerce. The market size of image analytic solutions for retail stores in FY2021, based on the sales at businesses, is expected to resume the expanding tendency to achieve 1,570 million yen, 141.4 percent of the preceding fiscal year.

Noteworthy Topics

Trend of Entry by Vendors Providing Image Analytic Solutions for Retail Stores

As for the market players of image analytic solutions for retail stores, while some cloud-based vendors are reported to have already withdrawn from the market, it is confirmed that the vendors providing AI cameras have newly entered the market. In parallel with the replacement of vendors, image analytic solution services as a whole are shifting from cloud-based to edge-computing based.

In addition, each solution vendor has a different position in the market, with each having different approaches to the market, from providing AI algorithms, to manufacturing and selling cameras, to providing edge AI devices, to developing in-store analytic platforms that visualize analysis results.

Future Outlook

The market in FY2022 to FY2023 is expected to see full-scale implementation in projects that are currently under consideration in various areas, and the market is expected to grow tremendously due to the very small market size to date, with the average annual growth rate from FY2021 to FY2024 to reach 40.9%.

Especially the deployment is likely to increase gradually at GMS and mass merchandisers which were hardly the object for image analytic solution services. Also, user companies in the fashion or the luxury brand industry are expected to press ahead with data-based business, as they review the existing physical store policies and as retail stores are transforming to RaaS (Retail as a Service), D2C (Direct to Consumer), etc.

Research Outline