Axis Product Shortage Confirmed / Normalize This Fall

By: John Honovich, Published on Aug 01, 2017

Friends and foes of Axis, over the past few months, have privately been commenting on Axis shipping delays.

Axis has confirmed this, noting:

Axis has enjoyed strong sales during the first half of 2017, stronger than we expected at the beginning of the year. This has resulted in prolonged lead times for some products. We are ramping up manufacturing and shipments of these products, and expect the delivery situation to normalize during the fall.

Axis emphasized that there were 'no production problem, just stronger sales' when IPVM asked them specifically about issues with manufacturing or components.

In this note, we examine Axis position.

Strong *****

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**** **** ************ **** at *** ********* ** this ****, ** ** not **** ***, ** they *** ***** ******** here, *********, **** *** not ****** ** **** as **% ******.

Update: **** ********** ******* ********

* ****** ** ****' Q2 **** ********** **** that ********* *** ******* nearly **% ***** ***** increased ** ****** *** same ********** ** *** same ******. **** ** a ****** ********** **** Axis ** ****** ***** truthful ***** ***** ********* projections ******* ***** *********.

Production ********?

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Models ********

**** *** ****** ** distributor ********, **** **** commonly **** ****** (**** as * *** * domes) **** ** ** fairly **** ******* *** available. ** ******* *** shortage ** **** ********* impacting **** **** ******** used / ******* ******.

******- **** *** ***

*** **** ****** ******** impact ** **** ********* being ******** ** ***** projects *** **** *********** using **** ** * means ** **** **** customers (** ***** *** ********* sales *** *** **** recently). *******, ***** **** is **** ******* ******** business ****** **** ** the ***** ********, **** will **** ** **** challenging ***** **** **** often ** ********* *** changing *** ************* *** be *********.

*** **** ******** ****** is **** ********* ****' business *************. ***** ***** and ********* ********** ******** to ****** ** ******** expansion, ** **** *** been ***** *** **** of **** ** ***** America ** ***** *** cybersecurity *** ******* ******** have ***** ***** ****. Axis ***** ** ** holding *** *** ** the ********** ***** *** now, ***** ** *** next ******** ** *** battle ******* *** ********* Chinese ****-************* *** ********* Western *** ******** ****.

Comments (32)

Undisclosed Integrator #1

08/01/17 03:07pm

While I could be very wrong, I see very little to convince me that growth miraculously increased over last year's 10% growth. If anything, I would have speculated that sales are down, not up based on personal market demand observations and comments on these boards .

FWIW, my Axis rep left to return to an integrator job and my Milestone rep left to go to another camera hardware manufacturer. After being gold level in both companies, we've sold zero of each for the last 18 months...

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #1 | 08/01/17 03:13pm

I would have speculated that sales are down, not up based on personal market demand observations and comments on these boards .

I think Axis is doing better and growing with enterprise accounts and more end to end sales and relatively less well with small to mid size jobs. That is my best explanation of why you are seeing them less but their financials are going up.

Undisclosed Integrator #2

08/01/17 03:25pm

Axis is lying about increased demand. We have government clients who won't use Axis because of the price and specifically ask for alternatives. All the advantages Axis used to have are being erased quickly by comparable (or in many cases superior) HIK cameras.

Their new 7.x firmware is a joke. We installed a P series 1435-LE and streamed it to a maxed out Core i7 PC and it kept lagging and giving us errors that the stream couldn't keep up.

Axis cameras continually drop offline when connecting to Exacq - The Axis tech support rep said they deal with this all day every day. We now install Christmas light timers to power cycle Axis camera nightly on any job requiring Axis to avoid weekly truck rolls.

Axis is 100% the new Pelco.

Undisclosed End User #5

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #2 | 08/01/17 04:09pm

"Axis cameras continually drop offline when connecting to Exacq"

Happens with Axis cameras on other VMS's too.

Christopher Uiterwyk

IPConfigure
In reply to Undisclosed End User #5 | 08/01/17 05:34pm

This is simply not true. Axis cameras function flawlessly with our VMS.

Undisclosed End User #5

In reply to Christopher Uiterwyk | 08/02/17 02:59pm

Well good for IPconfigure, but I am not lying. Two of our six 5MP AXIS P3367-VE cameras will not communicate for up to 6 minutes at a time. Can happen 1-10 times per 24 hours. Only Arecont cameras are worse. No problems with Sony, Hanwha, Panasonic or Hikvision.

Tyler Graham

In reply to Undisclosed End User #5 | 08/02/17 04:28pm

And you're blaming the camera? I'm thinking you have a layer 1 issue. Just for fun I went and looked at the uptime for all of the P3367s on one site. Seems okay...

Undisclosed End User #5

In reply to Tyler Graham | 09/26/17 09:58pm

UPDATE - I too looked at the logs for up time for my two offending Axis P3367 cameras. Oddly enough they showed long-term up time, but they were indeed going off-line very frequently from their assigned Milestone powered OnSSI VMS recorder. My other P3367's using the same recording server are stable.

Last week I replaced the two offending Axis P3367 cameras, with Hanwha XNV-8080RN units. Re-used the existing cabling, only the cameras were swapped, no other changes.

So far the Hanwha's are 100% stable and actually provide a usable image in dim light!

Undisclosed Integrator #15

In reply to Undisclosed End User #5 | 08/02/17 05:33pm

I have thousands of Axis cameras running on Exacq and other VMS's as well with very few issues. They are pricey, but you pay for what you get.

Undisclosed Integrator #6

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #2 | 08/01/17 04:28pm

That's very odd. We primarily use Axis and Exacq because of their stability. We are relatively small compared some of the big national guys out there, we only do 2-3 Million a year with Axis, but have never run into any of the problems you listed. If you're maxing out a Core i7 PC with one 2MP camera, you might want to check the PC, I don't care who the manufacturer is that shouldn't happen. As for the "superior" Hik cameras, we've been asked by several clients not to provide them because of their reliability and security vulnerabilities which are too many to name. I'm not advocating that you should only use Axis by any means, but I think you should dig deeper into those sites where you are clearly being misled with other problems.

Undisclosed Integrator #3

08/01/17 03:29pm

"government clients who won't use Axis because of the price"? Seems unlikely.

Undisclosed Integrator #2

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #3 | 08/01/17 03:34pm

What you have to understand about government is that they have zero day-to-day operating budget. They only waste money when they do big tenders and hire consultants for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #2 | 08/01/17 04:08pm

What you have to understand about government

There's lot of different governments and levels of government. I think we should be cautious making blanket statements about 'government' spending.

Suffice to say, overall, Axis does a lot better with Western 'government' than they do small businesses and vice versa for Hikvision.

Undisclosed Integrator #4

08/01/17 04:04pm

Isn't this typical during this time of the year? We have classically had issues acquiring specialty cameras during the school/construction season. Encoders seem to dry up during this season as well. We're seeing supply issues beyond Axis over and over again starting in June through September every year. For example, Panasonic panoramic cameras are an issue every year during this season.

Undisclosed Integrator #7

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #4 | 08/01/17 05:11pm

Exactly my thoughts as well, summer supplies always get tight. It isn't always the same companies, seems to rotate. But if I'm not getting my reps timelines and quantities early on I'm in trouble at this time of year till the fall.

Undisclosed Integrator #8

08/01/17 07:45pm

Just an FYI to Axis folks out there. I would recommend signing up with Wesco (CSC) as a backup distributor. You don't have to promise them the world but they can help you in a pitch. They usually have a little better stock on Axis cameras (i.e. fisheyes, P3707-PE) that sell out quickly.

Undisclosed Integrator #9

08/01/17 10:34pm

Wow. Lots of Axis bashin' going on here.

I work for a global integrator and use them almost exclusively because we don't have to run out to service them all the time. No problems working with Aimetis, Milestone, ONSSI, Verint, Exacq, Salient, or any other VMS we have in the field.

And my customers love them as much as my techs.

Undisclosed Integrator #10

08/02/17 01:31am

Just fell victim to an Axis shortage. Arecont just received a nice last minute order and we got it all in 2 days.

Ethan Ace

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #10 | 08/02/17 01:41am

Curious, if you don't mind sharing, which Axis models did you replace with which Arecont models?

Undisclosed Integrator #10

In reply to Ethan Ace | 08/02/17 02:48am

P3707-PE for Arecont Surround 360's

Undisclosed Integrator #11

08/02/17 12:58pm

We were told they had a customer order 8,000 P3707's and another order 2,000 of them in the same month. They only make 1,500 or so a month. The frustrating thing is they decided to fulfill that order all at once instead of stagger them. I can't believe they are going to install that many before the end of the year plus the warehouse space to stage them. So now we have a handful of one and two camera jobs that are put on hold until they catch up.

Christian Laforte

08/02/17 01:00pm

Pure speculation, but maybe one of Axis' hardware suppliers has met unprecedented demand due to Ethereum mining. The demand for GPU has increased 25% due to that in a few months.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/10/good_luck_building_a_vr_pc_ethereum_miners_are_buying_all_the_gpus/

Undisclosed Integrator #12

08/02/17 01:08pm

Maybe Cannon should spend more time focussed on manufacturing than litigation?

Undisclosed #13

In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #12 | 08/02/17 01:19pm

You want Cannon to dress the lawyers in lab coats and send them to the factory to build cameras?

Damon Hood

08/02/17 01:44pm

I am not sure who is reporting they are having issues with Axis supply. I realize they are admitting it, however I am an end user and in the past 6 - 8 months we have installed probable 150 - 160 Axis cameras at 5 or 6 different projects and have not experienced any delays on my projects.

I also just issued another PO yesterday for a new project for a 24 camera install and again all Axis. So we will see if this project takes a while to complete.

Undisclosed Integrator #14

08/02/17 02:01pm

Has there ever been an Axis back door or vulnerability exposed? Serious question. We have customers who will only use Axis because they are not made in China. Price is not an issue with these customers and support from Axis has been really good in my experience.

Brian Karas

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Integrator #14 | 08/02/17 02:38pm

Yes, Axis has suffered a few vulnerabilities of various sorts, including one that allowed backdoor-style root access. They are listed in our Directory of Video Surveillance Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities and Exploits.

The two most recent Axis vulnerabilities listed are much more difficult to exploit and less likely to be seen used in a widespread manor.

Ethan Ace

IPVM | 08/02/17 02:32pm

Update: We've added a section to the report after reviewing Axis financials.

A review of Axis' Q2 2017 financials show that inventory has dropped nearly 20% while sales increased by nearly the same percentage in the same period. This is a strong indication that Axis is indeed being truthful about sales exceeding projections causing these shortages.

Scott Bradford

IPVMU Certified | 08/02/17 03:39pm

I'm waiting on a dozen P3707 units. Estimated ship is October. My Hanwa rep is trying to flip us to their new multi imager camera, but there's a several hundred dollar delta

Ethan Ace

IPVM | 08/02/17 03:45pm

Another update, Axis commented specifically on the P3707, saying:

AXIS P3707 is a product where growth this year has been stronger than we expected. We are in the process of ramping up manufacturing, and we will increase shipments significantly during the late summer and fall.

Undisclosed Manufacturer #16

08/02/17 10:20pm

[Avigilon Employee - IPVM Note Added]

A great opportunity for the users of the P3707 to have a look at the AVIGILON Multisensor models available with 3x3MP or 4x3MP heads with varifocal lenses. These are ONVIF and have been deployed with various VMS platforms. I for one cannot understand that especially this model of AXIS camera would be in such high demand with such modest manufacturing numbers. Surely the AXIS Sales team would have been aware that an order of 8000 of any model was pending which would have allowed production to anticipate. Maybe we are not given the full truth by AXIS...

Brian Karas

IPVM | In reply to Undisclosed Manufacturer #16 | 08/02/17 10:37pm

For those considering the Avigilon camera, check out our test: Avigilon HD Multisensor Camera Tested. This test is a bit old (Dec 2015), but I do not think anything has changed since then.

Two things to factor:

The image sensor assemblies are bulky, and limit the layout options compared to the Axis camera
This unit, like other older Avigilon cameras, does not have any smart CODEC option, so bandwidth and storage costs may be higher than the Axis camera.

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