Visual search is the process of identifying a specific predetermined object; visual search engine automatically collects the visual information from the web and classifies the image and video data accordingly. This technology has the potential to yield better outcome than text searches, owing to its use of advanced technologies such as machine learning and AI.
Visual search technology are majorly employed by consumers to identify and purchase a product; demand for improved search, better, instant and precise outcomes have resulted in a surge among the consumers to use visual search. Visual search engine uses image recognition technique to search, and is a relatively new technology. Thus, companies are keen to implement it in order to drive the sales in the future. Major companies such as Google and Microsoft are investing considerably in this technology and seeking to tap into the visual search market through their own products, namely Google lens and Bing image search. Increase in the number of smart phones, and the rise of mobile commerce are fueling the growth of visual search market across the globe.
The visual search market has penetrated briskly across the various industry verticals, however, high cost of implementation may limit the market growth.
With the advancement and improvement of these visual search engines particularly in areas such as increasing the efficiency of the search results, the demand for the product is likely to increase. Swift adoption of visual search engines in e-commerce will offer a steep growth in the market.
The statistics from World Bank, that showcases the total number of passengers carried through air transport in India quotes that the number of passengers travelling through airplanes has been increasing steadily from 75.5 million in 2013 to 119.5 million in 2016, and is expected to remain the same in the future. This offers ample opportunities for the growth of visual search market in India as they are extensively employed for structural inspection of these aircrafts. Like India, the standard of living has been increasing in some other APAC countries such as China and Indonesia, where the people’s ability to afford air travel has been increasing. This is expected to attract investments in the aviation sector, upon which the companies will be able to incorporate visual search engine techniques.
In United States, more than 46% of the total population use internet to shop. Mobile visual search helps in to identify a visually similar product by initiating a search request from the camera of the phone. The mobile retail E-commerce sales in the United States had increased from $56.67 Billion in 2014 to $156.28 Billion in 2017, and this trend is expected to continue in the near future. This presents a notable opportunity for the growth of visual search market in United States as the country is well versed with mobile commerce.
Visual search is used extensively by automotive companies for visual brand protection. They also have various other applications such as fake product detection, face detection and landmark identification. However, concerns regarding the lack of yielding an efficient search result will likely be a major constraint for the growth of the market. Therefore, investing in R&D will help many companies improve the quality of their product as well as have better scope for market attractiveness, which will propel the overall growth of the market across the glob