Subscriber Discussion

For Your Information, Dahua Selling Direct In Argentina, Flooding The Market At Very, Very Low Cost

Avatar
Juan Moratto
Sep 07, 2018
Vigilancia Online-Argentina

According to the notice "Congressional Letter Urges Sanctions Against Dahua and Hikvision For Human Rights Abuses" I like to add some information I have posted some time ago (sorry for my English, I'm from Argentina). Dahua and Hikvision are flooding our market with merchandise at a very, very low cost in a way of dumping other firms for entry in this market. 

Political matters apart, the chinese government lends millions of dollars to our country, having established a "satellite searching base/aerospatial military base" granted for 50 years in our territory (Patagonia) without taxes.

But, returning to our matters, the market is being flooded since 3 years ago directly from Dahua (not its dealers), jumping over integrators and security professionals, and selling their products directly to end users: big and medium companies in a direct way at undisclosed/undisclosed prices.

Resuming: specially Dahua is converting Argentina CCTV market in a financial business, not a security business, price matters, no? Hikvision operates in a more correct way in order to respect integrators.

I have noticed that these same actions are being carried on in other countries of South America induced (I think) by the loss of American market. Regards! Juan.

(6)
JH
John Honovich
Sep 08, 2018
IPVM

Juan, thanks for sharing. I have heard similar stories from other industry people in Latin America.

Let's keep in mind this is Dahua, a company that excels at making bad decisions. My question is: why? What is Dahua's end game here? Sure, short term they move units but not sure how it is sustainable or how they will make money doing this long term. Any thoughts?

To be clear, I am not trying to minimize the current issue, I just can't understand how it lasts.

UD
Undisclosed Distributor #1
Sep 10, 2018


JH
John Honovich
Sep 10, 2018
IPVM

#1, your comment is empty? can you expand?

(2)
UD
Undisclosed Distributor #2
Sep 10, 2018

Juan 

Dahua have done the same in some middle eastern countries trying to get bigger market share and dope Hikvision but what happened ? Dahua distributors have had very low profit margins. As result, some of them stopped dealing with Dahua and they lost bigger market share to Hikvision. Eventually, they have increased there prices as well and Hikvision has dominated the markets. I believe that if the distributors or system integrators are not getting good profit, then they won't invest in the field anymore. 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Avatar
Juan Moratto
Sep 10, 2018
Vigilancia Online-Argentina

Hi!

The trick about capturing a market and distorted it completely is not so easy!

In first place, Dahua is coping (flooding) the market with cheaper and cheaper products and selling directly to end users of high profile: imagine that a camera/access control maker sells his products to ALL branches of WaltMart at undisclosed prices (an example, only), you, as an integrator couldn´t sell anything to this client in every branch in every county. That´s what this company does. But what about the distributors? Instead of stopping buying from this maker started selling the articles also, directly to the end user to our "eBay" (called Mercado Libre) at prices similar to what they apply to integrators.

So do other importers and dealers of chinese products. So, if you live in Argentina you could buy an NVR for, for example for 128 cameras, an storage, the disks, the PTZ domes at dealer prices from the chinese and their dealers. Then contract an information system student and a pair of cheap electricians (nothing against them please) and ready! You could install 100 hundred PTZ domes without requiring any integrator, security specialist, or something similar.

The problem is getting worse month after month here. The "commodities" here are not NVR, cameras, or access control systems, the commodities are security specialists and integrators.

I forgot to say that this companies, also, design the project for you. What this means? If you are an information system specialist, know nothing about security technology, you can send your requirement directly to this companies and they will sell to you what they want (not necesarilly what YOU need).

In this case, no need of installers or integrators, you are out. It´s easy, the security market transform itself in a non-specialized market, a commodity market. The end user thinks: if it cost me the half, I can buy two for the price of one, so if one fails I always could buy another and it will cost me nothing. Except three screws, of course for replacing any camera.

Well sorry for my english, and I want to advice this kind of dirty and dangerous tactics. Greetings! Juan.

 

(1)
JH
John Honovich
Sep 10, 2018
IPVM

I forgot to say that this companies, also, design the project for you.

Dahua is designing systems? And who handles installation and commissioning of these systems?

Avatar
Juan Moratto
Sep 10, 2018
Vigilancia Online-Argentina

Hi John, 

First at all, I have no intention to provoke a discussion, we, as installers and integrators really, are very sorry. We live thanks our knowledge and work, and this kind of problems are something that we are not prepared for. Our problem is to apply the correct price and service to our clients, specially, a service of the best quality we could bring, not be in this kind of "price and clients wars".

With respect to your question John, YES. Dahua opened 3 offices in my country that attends end users for designing solutions for the following specialties: Oil&Gas, Retail, Manufacturing, Cities and Municipalities.

For example they make the project for a chain of retail supermarkets (one of the most importants in Argentina) and developed the solution with Dahua products. The installation task force is kept secret and the commisioning remains to Dahua International.

They are making business in Oil&Gas companies (one of our specialties, extremely demanding) in the same way, you could see the same in some municipalities that they interact directly with their authorities, no price contest, and direct installation.

The installers involved maintain secrecy for money reasons: if you talk, we don´t contract you again.....and so on. On the other side, I know they are contracting no technicians for the installations, only boys that have manual ability as installers (elementary knowledge of cabling, electric drills, and electricity).

We have discovered that the problem don´t finish with Dahua, other chinese firms and official resellers do the same. So, in order to be explicit, we, in our firm worked 9 technicians, well, I have to fire - something very sad- four of them, cause this kind of tactics. At the same time, other companies like Avigilon, Bosch, Pelco, and others have little possibility, also, to make business now selling equipment 10 times (!) more expensive than chinese products.

Regards! Juan. 

 

(2)
New discussion

Ask questions and get answers to your physical security questions from IPVM team members and fellow subscribers.

Newest discussions