i-PRO CEO: ‘We have grown solidly’

FUKUOKA, Japan—In the five years since i-PRO split from Panasonic, CEO Masato Nakao’s company has established itself as a global manufacturer of nearly 300 cameras thanks to a commitment to change, collaboration and streamlined product development.   

Nakao-san kicked off the recent Global Press Summit at the company’s Fukuoka headquarters by providing an overview of how i-PRO has evolved and continues to “grow solidly” as its own entity after breaking away from Panasonic in 2019. Upon its establishment as i-PRO in 2019, the company has achieved growth on a yearly basis, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% from 2020-2023.  

Nakao-san noted that i-PRO’s projected fiscal 2024 revenues are more than 50 billion Japanese yen, following what he termed a “healthy profit” in fiscal 2023 with an EBITDA margin of 13%.  

Changing ways 

Before the establishment of i-PRO, Nakao-san noted that Panasonic was not always happy about its security business. 

“We are stable, while others are growing, so our team changed many ways of doing our business,” he said.  

As a result, i-PRO changed the way it conducted business in two ways. The first was establishing an open policy – engaging with other companies when it comes to offering analytics and platforms. Nakao-san explained that Panasonic believed everything related to developing a security system – hardware, analytics apps and platforms –could be done in house.  

i-PRO still develops cameras with its own hardware but now partners with analytics providers such as Vaxtor and Morpho AI Solutions to supply applications to work in its edge AI devices. On the platform side, i-PRO now partners with VMS and cloud providers like Genetec, Milestone and Eagle Eye Networks.  

“They are no longer our enemy; they are our partners,” said Nakao-san.   

The second change that i-PRO introduced is time-based competition. Before 2019, Panasonic took a “monolithic design” approach when developing cameras from scratch, with an average development cycle of 20 to 30 months and between 15 to 30 models launched in a year. As i-PRO, Nakao-san explained that cameras are made up of three interchangeable modules – the optical module, chipset module and interface module – which together have improved performance dramatically. Now, the development cycle time is 10 to 14 months, with 50 to 100 models launched each year. 

i-PRO launched 94 cameras in 2023, with a total of 289 camera models in its catalog currently.  

“This was the great change since our establishment,” he said.  

Becoming a pioneer  

Looking ahead, Nakao-san noted i-PRO’s focus on developing the most sophisticated edge AI technology in its cameras, with 231 of its 289 cameras featuring edge AI. In addition, he sees the company continuing to drive focused growth on mission-critical verticals, as well as offer end-to-end cybersecurity by authenticating individual edge devices.  

“We have so many elements of AI-related or edge computing or IoT technologies, which is necessary for the market to evolve,” he said. “That's our vision.”