The global market for video management software continues to grow at a double-digit rate, but the additional revenue is increasingly concentrated among a smaller group of vendors. According to new analyses from Omdia and Novaira Insights, Genetec gained further market share in 2025 and strengthened its position at the top of the global VMS market. The findings also point to a broader structural shift: customers are increasingly favouring providers capable of combining on-premises, cloud and hybrid architectures within a unified platform.

The professional video surveillance market has entered another phase of expansion. Two recent studies by independent market research firms Omdia and Novaira Insights rank Genetec once again as the world’s leading provider of video management software.

The Canadian physical security software company not only retained its position in 2025 but expanded its share of a market that itself recorded strong growth.

According to Omdia, Genetec increased its business in video software and Video Surveillance as a Service, or VSaaS, by 20 per cent. The overall market grew by 13.3 per cent over the same period, meaning Genetec outperformed the market by approximately 6.7 percentage points.

The development of its closest competitors is equally significant. According to the research, the vendors ranked second and third failed to match Genetec’s growth and ended the year either flat or in decline. The market expansion is therefore not benefiting all established suppliers to the same extent.

Market growth is redistributing share

Behind the figures is a broader change in what customers expect from video management systems. Video surveillance is increasingly no longer treated as a standalone security application, but as part of a wider IT and physical security architecture.

As a result, scalability, cloud readiness, integration capabilities and technological openness are becoming more important factors in purchasing decisions.

Paul Bremner, Practice Leader for Physical Security at Omdia, identifies this as one of the main reasons for the shifting market shares. Buyers are increasingly selecting vendors capable of delivering cloud, on-premises and hybrid solutions through a unified and open platform, while suppliers unable to support this range of deployment models are losing ground.

The VMS market is therefore beginning to follow a development already visible in other areas of enterprise IT. For customers, the decisive question is no longer simply which platform can manage cameras and video streams. Increasingly, it is how effectively that platform can integrate with existing infrastructure and scale across multiple sites, systems and deployment models.

Hybrid architectures are particularly important in this transition. Organisations do not necessarily need to replace their existing on-premises security infrastructure with cloud-based alternatives in one step. Instead, they can migrate individual functions and locations gradually.

For vendors, this creates a competitive advantage where both environments can be managed within a common architecture.

Genetec gains ground in EMEA

Novaira Insights confirms the broader trend from another perspective. Excluding China, Genetec ranks first worldwide by the total number of contracts for video management software and related services.

Its market position is not confined to one region. According to Novaira Insights, Genetec has ranked first in North and South America for 15 consecutive years.

For the European security market, the EMEA figures are particularly noteworthy. Genetec recorded the strongest market share growth among the region’s top ten vendors. In Asia-Pacific, excluding China, the company is also now among the three leading suppliers.

This geographical expansion matters because competition in EMEA is increasingly influenced by factors beyond core product performance. Data protection, cybersecurity, technological sovereignty and control over data and infrastructure are becoming more prominent considerations in investment decisions.

For security operators across Europe and the wider EMEA region, the ability to choose where data is processed and how systems are integrated can therefore be as important as traditional VMS functionality.

From VMS software to physical security platforms

Genetec attributes its continued growth largely to demand for open and scalable architectures. Christian Morin, Vice President of Product Engineering at Genetec, says organisations with demanding security requirements increasingly want systems based on modern IT standards without being locked into a single technology provider.

This reflects one of the most important economic developments in the market. Traditional video management software is increasingly evolving into a platform business for physical security.

Video remains a core component, but it is increasingly integrated with access control, analytics, cloud services and other security applications within a common operating environment.

The basis of competition is changing accordingly. Alongside functionality and licence costs, customers are placing greater value on integration, open interfaces and the ability to operate several deployment models within one architecture.

At the same time, cloud and service-based offerings are increasing the proportion of recurring revenue available to manufacturers.

VSaaS changes the revenue model

The rise of VSaaS is accelerating this shift. Traditional VMS deployments have often been driven by capital expenditure on local servers, storage systems and associated infrastructure.

Service-based models move part of that value creation towards recurring software and cloud revenue. For suppliers, this can create more predictable revenue streams. For customers, it can provide greater flexibility to scale capacity, locations and functionality according to demand.

The transition does not mean that on-premises infrastructure is disappearing. In many high-security environments, local systems will continue to play a central role. The competitive advantage increasingly lies in being able to combine these systems with cloud-based services rather than forcing customers into a single deployment model.

A new competitive phase for the VMS market

The findings from Omdia and Novaira Insights therefore reveal more than the performance of one manufacturer. Although the global VMS market is expanding rapidly, the benefits of that growth are being distributed unevenly.

Market share is increasingly moving towards vendors capable of combining established on-premises video infrastructure with cloud services, open architectures and broader physical security platforms.

For Genetec, that shift is currently working in its favour. With growth of 20 per cent, the company is significantly outperforming the market while strengthening its position across several major regions.

The wider implication for the security industry is clear: Competitive advantage in video management will increasingly depend not only on the performance of the VMS itself, but on a provider’s ability to connect local infrastructure, cloud services and additional security systems within an open, scalable and long-term platform strategy.