The Explosives, Weapons and Contraband (EWC) Detection market is set to decline by a total of 9.5 percent in 2020, according to Omdia’s latest forecast.

Airports and event venues are set to be the most affected industries with revenues set to decline between 13 percent and 42 percent due to the global pandemic. Airports are the primary consumer of EWC equipment. However, due to the global pandemic airline and airport operator’s budgets have been significantly affected due to the sharp decline in air travel traffic.

Omdia expects that governments will continue to seek to work towards completing the security equipment upgrade plans despite the significant economic challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic. However, there will be significant delays in implementing larger tenders for new equipment as many government offices have been partially closed, and real-life demonstrations of equipment use were not able to be scheduled throughout 2020.

Smaller and regional airports may also opt to focus on servicing of existing equipment, delaying the purchase of more or new x-ray screening machines until normal operations resume.

The events industry will be slower to recover according to Omdia’s forecasting. Omdia expects that there will be a slower demand for EWC equipment in the events sector of the EWC market in 2021. Sectors where the use of EWC equipment is considered less than essential will likely see the slowest recovery in new shipments of equipment. Budgetary priorities of many companies will shift towards business preservation, new marketing campaigns to re-energize sluggish business operations, and any measures necessary to make the business environment safer for both employees and customers.

According to Anna Sliwon-Stewart, senior analyst and research manager, security and building technologies at Omdia, keeping up with evolving threat environments due to the pandemic is next issue of focus for EWC equipment manufacturers, as well as stakeholders in the government and scientific community.

“While the pandemic has slowed down the growth in the EWC market revenues, the industry’s work on new solutions focused on leveraging the full capabilities of artificial intelligence, a wide range of terahertz-spectrum wave technology applications and new technologies for trace detection has continued,” Sliwon-Stewart said.

The Full EWC Market Report is available for download online.