Hikvision Desperate And Destructive Slashing

Do we know that this is actually being driven by Hikvision, and not ADI? Couldn't it just be ADI desperate to get rid of aging stock? Hikvision seems to replace/upgrade their models faster than the average camera manufacturer.

i would think ADI has a stock rotation agreement.

I'm always curious if this has anything to do with Hikvision having to compete against it's gray market (amazon and websites like 123security) and white label self in the real market considering you can get those versions so much cheaper than the standard wholesale prices Hikvision USA cameras are priced at through their distribution model.

I think this is being orchestrated by ADI in attempt to gain share from other distributors. They found a willing vendor in Hik Vision that offered ADI such deep discounts. HIK will do whatever it takes to grow their volume. I once spoke to a HIK country manager who said he had instructions from China to win business at any price required. This is having major disruptions in the video surveillance industry.

So, nice work ADI!

Good Article. I agree, Hikvision doesnt need to offer such frequent sales. People will buy hikvision at their already low price. Stop the madness and keep your profits at normal price. The typical ADI customer buys based on the jobs they sale, rather than stocking up a stockpile of products to be sold at a later date. So I dont think offering frequent sales will really push sales, especially to a company like ADI who sells to customers who simply purchase products based on the jobs they sale. I dont necessarily think this would encourage ADI to buy more products either. From what I understand, they dont stock a large amount of products at each branch and sometimes frequently have to get orders fulfilled from Hik's warehouse. So this was all Hik's move, not ADI's.

I don't really see the problem here. HIKVision is aggressively trying to win market share by lowering prices. Mission accomplished. HIKVision's tech support is extremely good, their products have a very low failure rate, even their lowest price models have all the features you could ask for - SD card recording, Digital WDR, built-in DDNS, etc, and their return policy is excellent. In the case of ADI, you literally ship a camera back and ADI sends you a brand new one.

Maybe people out there are wary about the future. Maybe HIK will hook us all and then their tech support will get worse, products will get worse, prices will go up. Maybe. But until that happens, why wouldn't you deal with them now while they are excellent?

I don't agree with IPVM's assumption that they are destructive and losing money. If you can buy a Costco Q-See 16 camera kit with DVR for $499, then I'm pretty sure the manufacturer and the distributor are making money off 16 x $100 HIK cameras at $1600.

I do agree that HIK is going to bankrupt a lot of middle companies. Axis will stick around because they are the best, and we will always recommend them first, especially for clients where budget is not an issue. HIK and Dahua will fight for the low-end market and the companies in the middle we don't really care about ACTi, Vivotek, Panasonic are fine to disappear. Those middle companies can move up the ladder by innovating (not likely) or move down the ladder by price slashing. Seems like they're not doing either at the moment, so it's a matter of time before they're gone.

Hi John. Please help me to understand this. Isn't the bigger issue the trade agreement with China that makes it financially feasible for Chinese manufacturers to do this? I know that SIA has at least talked about trying to do something about what comes down to unfair trade facilitated by our government. Is there anything that we in the industry can do through our elected officials?

Just curious, how is Hikvision pricing comparing to, for instance Sony, in the US?

i had to replace a defective Sony Full HD bullet for a customer recently and offered two alternatives: the newer model of the same Sony and a comparable Hikvision (Darkfighter). The price difference to the customer was 20% and the customer chose to stick with Sony.

Are the price differences in the US much higher? Over here in Europe, i see this kind of price difference (20-30%) between brands like Axis, Sony etc and Hikvision-Dahua. That is, for camera's with more or less the same specs. There are a lot of cheaper options in Hik-Dahua but these have less functionality and no counter parts in the premium brands

Wow, Just 2 days after the last one, Hikvision has another across the board sale at ADI.

This time, it is 10% with DW, FLIR and Speco all matching because, well, they almost have to at this point:

Are you so sure that this is actually costing Hikvision money i.e. they are running at a loss.

I used to work for Hikvision in Australia and we could easily undercut any competitor and still make huge margins. Our day to day pricing was so competitive and we made very very healthy margins and our region was definitely not losing money. You would be surprised at how cheap the cameras are to make, and the fact that Hikvision are producing probably 5-6 times more cameras than their closest competitor it make the economies of scale so much better from a component and manufacturing cost perspective.

I would be very careful pushing the line that their overseas businesses are running at a loss. Typically their overseas sales prices are higher than their domestic sales and margins are strong across the board.

Another one:

its hard to take that "limited time" seriously...