Axis Launches New Low Cost Cameras

"The race to the bottom is almost complete..."

Axis only dropped the price ~$30 / ~13%.

My gut feel is that they could have made life much more difficult for the Chinese by going further (even lower pricing). I also think that strategically that would be useful to limit Hikvision's gain.

To that end, I view Axis' move as being relatively limited given the overall price drop in the market.

Axis response:

"Now you can tilt the camera all the way up to the ceiling, or the same level it is mounted."

When they verify the exact angles, I will add to this comment and post above.

Probably, yes. Of course, it is a matter of how much profit and how sensitive the market is to price.

For example, let's say Axis is making a decision of selling Camera A for $200 or $150. The cost of the product is the same regardless of the price. The profit per camera is definitely less selling at $150 than at $200, so that is bad. However, the key question is how many more cameras could Axis sell at $150 than $200. It if it only 5% than that is a bad move, if it is 33%, could be a profitable move, etc.

The bigger thing I suspect is that pricing the new M30s at say $150 to start would create a weird effect with their existing mid series, i.e., a dealer says "The new M30 is just $150 but you mid level is $400, why is it so much higher, maybe I'll just buy the lower end one." In other words, lower pricing at the low end could cut into mid level sales.

Net / net, I do not think the pricing decision is simple especially since they are competing in a market warped by a subsidiary of the Chinese government who benefits from its government connections / funding / projects, etc.

The main thing, if it was me, is that I would be willing to sacrifice profit in the short term to stop Hikvision from taking more of my dealer base and moving further up market. Now, I do not know, maybe Axis has a theory that Hikvision will eventually sputter / spot like their previous low cost rivals did. Not simple...

U4 that is a intresting comment , labelling both axis and hik as crap ...

have you ever used either product ??

probably not

both are good products , and both sell

While I am not a fan of AXIS they dont make crap either.

I will say one of the problems I have with AXIS is referred to in this article, They let their hardware get and stay out of date way longer than they should let it.

Does the M3004v have crappy specs? yes by today's standards its pretty bad, It should have been out of production almost 2 yrs ago and refreshed with something newer and/or cheaper. Is it a bad camera though? not really, just outdated.

You are correct. We have boxes of it which has failed ptz's imagers seem to be the worse..

The Main goal is to go after "big boys"

What "boy" is bigger than Hik?

I purchased the Hikvision DS-2CD2332-I 3MP EXIR Turret Network Camera from Boston Technologies via Amazon in Oct, 2014. It claimed to have face detection and motion detection, and had the interface controls for it, but those (and many other functions) were completely non-functional. It's hard to know what Hikvision does or does not do when one cannot depend on good results from a credible retailer. How many gray market performance failures does it take to blacken their name? This is Hikvision's Achilles heel: good reputation and consumer trust is built on positive consumer experiences. When a vendor doesn't stand behind their own product, that is truly a race to the bottom.

I'm a little surprised that none of the bigger names have decided to create their low-cost cameras under different brand. Similar to how Cisco bought Linksys to be their entry-level line (though that didn't work out all that great).

I think that part of what is driving Hikvision is the direct end-user sales (and not just EZ-Viz, but the product being available many places online). At some point Axis/etc. are going to need to acknowledge and address this. They're painted into a corner right now, they can't go totally low-price because there is a middle-man with integrators, and they can't sell direct under their own brand because that will cause a lot of blow-back.