Top Chinese Brands Eyeing the World Market: Report of 2007 Top 10 Chinese Brands

This is the fourth year that A&S conducts the survey of Top 10 Chinese Brands. Ever since the digitalization brought revolution to the whole industry of security, in China, the influence has remained even stronger for the recent years. This year, A&S particularly separates the digital surveillance products from the CCTV ones and selects top 10 brands in digital surveillance. The final result reflects the highly-developing digital surveillance industry in China.

"2007 Top 10 Chinese Security Brands" reveal Chinese strong capability in digital surveillance, becoming the most important theme for this year. The industry of digital surveillance has become a strong force in China from our years' observation. Correspondingly, when we compared this result with the winners of top 10 security brands in China, we found that these seven Chinese brands in digital surveillance are also awarded the top 10 brands in China this yearHikvision, Dahua, Dali, Chenova, Tiandy, Hanbang and Santachi, beating many internationally-known brands. They are all strong in digital surveillance equipment, especially DVRs.

Digital Surveillance Gains Achievement in 2007

From the result, it can be predicted that within years of efforts coming from the enterprises and the government, Chinese DVR industry is ready to take up more middle-to high-end markets in China. Winners for digital surveillance mostly own its particular R&D capability and strict self-requirements toward manufacturing process.

Hikvision, as the number one Chinese DVR manufacturer, "focuses on three main directions to upgrade itself: strengthening networking functions, intelligence features and technology in producing high-resolution images," said Vice President of Hikvision, Yibo Zheng. Almost all the Hikvision's sales points in China can take the responsibilities of after-sales services from the maintenance of chipsets to the solutions for projects. In overseas markets, Hikvision has one branch office in U.S. In the near future, Hikvision aims to explore more in the European market. Hikvision is one of the few Chinese companies who have remarkable achievement in export and show great ambitions to take up more overseas markets.

Dahua, compared to other vendors, has some achievements in providing specific solutions for different industries within their complete surveillance product lines. For example, their transportation and banking solutions recently caught much attention of local buyers. Recently, Dahua successfully developed hybrid DVRs, able to connect analog and digital cameras to provide more choices for their partners in systems integration. "Dahua started to export products to the U.S. and Europe around four to five years, and recently planned to move to some developing countries. Just like the strategy we use in China market, we are very attentive to keeping the strong commitment and relationship within our distributors around the world," said Michael Chen, Manager for Overseas Marketing in Dahua.

Dali, on the other hand, focuses on the upgrade of its high-end DVRswith the 32-channel embedded DVR launched recentlyand the development of video servers and mobile DVRs. Since Dali has its strong unique technical background in IR technology, IR-related products, such as IR cameras or IR thermal testers are what they are known to the overseas markets. "Dali has many high-quality products and ready to launch specific DVRs and IR products for different industries. For Dali, the most urgent task now is how to promote all the high-quality products clearly to the buyers through magazines, website and most important, worldwide tradeshows," noted Jenny Zhou, Marketing Director of Dali.

Chenova provides their one-stop shopping sales strategies in the market for a long time. In China, Chenova has complete and multiple sales channels and take great efforts in strengthening their sales networks to sell their own branded products. Eyeing the overseas market, they are going to establish one branch in Germany. In the near future, they will have branches in Africa, Taiwan, U.S. and Germany. With the help from its mother company, CSST, Chenova is equipped with full potentials in the future sales. "We co-work with all partners and subsidiaries of CSST that make us able to acquire projects easily. For example, one certain project might need certain products. Chenova can easily get the products from their partners within lowest price," said Hui Sun, General Manager of Chenova. Lately, Chenova is ready to launch its 4-channel embedded DVRs and sell at some chain stores overseas. "Now, almost all the security vendors produce similar products within similar functions. So, according to Chenova, the 'quality' and 'service' always come first when they select products," continued Sun.

Hanbang in China is one of the top four capture cards manufacturers. With years of expertise in manufacturing capture card, Hanbang established its US branch office in the end of 2004 to provide more instant technical and sales supports to their customers. "Now, our sales strategies have been changed to co-work with system integrators. Since our focus is in capture cards. The capabilities in customization and modification are far more important than selling embedded DVRs," said Liqun Wang, President at Hanbang. Now, they have all the product lines completed in H. 264 hardware compression PC-based and embedded DVRs.

Tiandy, in China, is one big company, able to take many projects in many Safe Cities and also provide one-stop shopping services for customers. Their latest speed dome has 3D tracking within touch-screen panel. Tiandy started export, since 2004, with 10 percent annually to overseas and mainly are some simple plug-&-play solutions, such as fiber optic transceivers. In 2008 and five more years later, they will join more global trade shows to search for more opportunities in overseas.

Santachi, in China, sells the whole systems of video surveillance equipment to systems integrators according to different projects need. For export, they mainly sell matrices and partially, some network cameras, speed domes and DVRs because currently their technical support can't reach all the local spots. They pointed out the analog matrix still exists at the market, such as Europe. The simple and highly reliable products are what they looking for to sell overseas. In Singapore, they sell within their own brand names.

For Kedacom, communications and video conference solutions are their specialty. In 2004, they launched the network video surveillance solution. In 2005, Kedacom was listed publicly in Singapore and produced H.264 products. Since they are experts in network communications, they are able to provide three-leveled services in network video surveillance solutions. Using the platform as the management center to coordinate with the alarm sensor for any emergency event. For Kedacom, in the future, NVR will replace DVR to possess more management functions as a platform, which should be the key to deal with a large quantity of data/information.

As new winners to the top 10 list, Kedacom, s t rong at networking and communications technologies, Skyvision, good at the management software designed particularly for video surveillance and Vorx with multi-services digital surveillance system in fiber optics all symbolize the significant achievement in digital surveillance today in China.

Chinese Intercom Players Being Active

The booming development also applies to the Chinese intercom industry. Besides the DVR industry, intercom manufacturers have formed a new force in Chinese market. Six Chinese brands of intercoms are also awarded as the top 10 brands in China. Anjubao, Lonbon, Leelen, Aurine, Genway and WRT remain their leading positions in China market in the two consecutive years. Their success in China these years has gradually leads them to move their focus to the overseas markets. IP-based intercoms and home-network systems are the products that they actively develop recently.

For intercom companies, Chinese market provides them a fantastic environment to grow and develop. The demand to make thousands of buildings link together and control in one central station will move Chinese manufacturers to accelerate their paces toward pure IP technologies and products. Meanwhile, the booming real estate in China also pushes many manufacturers to develop their own intelligent home systems. Anjubao, Aurine and Genway are the manufacturers among those leading intercom winners who first launched their solutions in home-network systems. Aurine, for instance, also follows the trend of developing TCP/ IP-based intercom products. "In China, an IP-based intercom able to connect thousands of communities is no longer new. In the near future, how to solve the transmission distance would need taking care of immediately. Moreover, the appearance of intercom products is also the key part that customers care about most," said Ying Zhu, General Manager of Aurine. Aurine recently invested a lot on its external product design for different markets' need.

Genway started export in 2002. At that time, either in overseas or domestic markets starts to put high quality standards toward intercoms. Genway designs products according to different demands from countries. Most important, they adopted IPT management system to conduct a detailed evaluation through its internal sales volume and margin, referencing from the updated market report. "OEM couldn't bring much strength to Genway. We are more focusing on designing stylish and high-end products. Mass production will degrade our total quality. So 'Genway' as a brand is quite important," said Jeff Huang, Managing Director of Genway. Their foundation is in Europe and Genway now is developing Australia, North America, South America and Middle East. They also work with their partners for new home-network system development.

Aomin targets at the mid- to high-end markets in China. Their products within sophisticate design and aesthetic looks were adopted in many big commercial buildings. The company also won the project to construct the Olympics media village. Unlike other intercom manufacturers, Aomin still focuses on the development of traditional intercoms within normal cablings and willing to partner and interact with users to promote their brands in this field.

Chinese intercom manufacturers indeed get more active in the last few years. However, now facing overseas markets, intercom products have quite different demands in different countries ranging from the external design and cabling. How to utilize their own technical strength and expertise in China to overseas would be the next important issue.

Analog Products Keep Stable Development

Among 2007 top 10 winners for CCTV, analog product sections, HTS, Lilin, Minking, Relong, Yaan, ZLD provide all different specifications of CCTV cameras, ranging from box cameras, domes, speed domes and some latest network cameras. While, some companies such as AB and Pearmain are strong in matrices and domes. Stonesonic and Skyworth are top suppliers for CCTV monitors and LCD multiple screen combination panel wall.

Companies such as HTS or Minking or Stonesonic here might be not strange to certain overseas markets. Minking, for instance, have representatives all over 40 countries around the world. They developed their patented PTZ system. In the past five to eight years, Minking do mostly OEM business, but sell within their own brand names only in Eastern Europe or South Eastern Asia. "Minking started export earlier than other Chinese manufacturers. Right now is a good time for us to promote our own brand names to overseas," said John Wang, General Manger of Minking.

Relong, though, comparatively a new player to the market, insists its own manufacturing processes in each step. They even produce lenses for their cameras. Recently, they develop the fingerprint locks within its own patented technology and become one of Chinese famous brands as well.

Access Control Provides Multiple Solutions

Five Chinese brands of access control are also awarded the top brands in China. The industry of access control stays stronger compared to the last few years. Due to the rise of construction of tall commercial buildings, big parking lots and shopping malls and intelligent communities, Chinese manufacturers become skillful in producing multiple solutions for different industries and applications. Some winners who are active in tapping into the overseas markets are Coson, ZKsofware and Reformer. They all are not first time winners for the top security brands. But, in recently years, since Chinese local markets have provided many business opportunities in different industries, such as door control, elevator control, parking lot management and time attendance, etc. The players are moving to produce more products which can satisfy the needs for these applications. Meanwhile, as the intercom industry, the sophisticate design and strong networking functionalities are what they focus on. In recent years, there is no much innovation regarding their products; but some small features are being emphasized. For example, the energy saving concept has been taken into consideration in Reformer's products. Meanwhile, for Coson, the access control system used for home security can be configured at each device in each area instead of the terminal. For ZKsoftware, the fingerprint did provide them the strength to differentiate other access control manufacturers.

Alarm Remains Unchanged

The list for 2007 top 10 alarm manufacturers is still the same as year 2006. The alarm industry doesn't change much. However, since the alarm system usually works for home security. Some players, such as Meian and Longhorn, recently have paid more attention to its connection and compatibility in intelligent home systems, which becoming the new trend for those Chinese alarm companies.

In total, there are only about sixteen new players in the security industry, which explains the stable development in some Chinese enterprises. These Chinese manufactures have met strict requirements in manufacture, production, quality control, services and sales in China. Due to the disorderly Chinese market and heavy pressure coming from the price competition, we found an increasing number of these Chinese manufacturers see the overseas markets. Although many of them are not yet known to the world, the near future will be the crucial time for them to explore the rest of the world.

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