From commoditized hardware to AI software and ecosystems, we explore how local security brands compete with Chinese giants at SICUREZZA.
Is there a reason I should buy a more expensive security camera from a prestigious brand even though a cheaper one can do the same? There is no way to answer this question once and for all, but one of Europe’s foremost security shows offered some food for thought.
Editor’s note: This is the second article of a two-part series on the state of the physical security industry as it was on display at SICUREZZA, one of Europe’s foremost security shows held in Milan, Italy, from Nov. 19 to 21.
In Part I, we looked at the proceeding consolidation of the sector, with 90% of the cumulative revenue of Security 50 companies going to China in 2025. With regulations in many Western markets tightening, however, is it fair to say there are two global markets these days, one where Chinese brands dominate, and one where they’re effectively excluded? Especially when looking at supply chain links, the picture seems to be more complicated. Chinese manufacturing and components remain central to the sourcing at non-Chinese brands. An extreme example is India, where virtually all chipsets in the cameras of domestic brands come from China.
All the same?
With the same Chinese chips in many non-Chinese cameras and other pieces of hardware, do customers effectively pay a premium price just for the “Made-in-Italy/Germany/France” label, which, even worse, is misleading at the end of the day?
In parallel to the decades-long shift toward Chinese brands, the security industry has indeed undergone a process of component commoditization, with the same supply chains shared among many brands. Let’s look at IP cameras for example: Even in the premium segments, image sensors and chipsets are often sourced from a small number of specialized global manufacturers, such as China’s HiSilicon, but also Japan’s Sony or the US-based companies OmniVision or Ambarella—all of which manufacture partly in China. When it comes to performance specs, this explains the strong similarities between cameras built for the same respective purpose by different brands, but one still shouldn’t discount the fact that some differences remain significant.
Meaningful differences between brands reside in the software, intelligence and ecosystem strategy—areas where European and other smaller players have competed successfully against the volume giants. Many of them, for example, use proprietary algorithms for noise reduction, color science, WDR (wide dynamic range) correction and bit-rate management.
The same is true for AI analytics, even though this is another bottleneck: Many brands rely on open-source data and might use the same sets to train their models.
Boutique brand vs volume manufacturer
In security as in other industries, smaller brands invoke “closer relations to fewer customers and partners” as key differentiator vis-à-vis larger competitors. This was also a common theme during conversations at SICUREZZA: “We understand the needs of our customers better. Our competitors may offer cheaper prices, but they understand the local situation only superficially.”
“Strategic differentiation” indeed requires that brands tailor their solutions to the needs of their specific verticals and develop technologies accordingly. The flipside of the argument, that bigger players are necessarily further away from the needs of customers, is not always true, though. Hikvision Italy, for example, operates seven full-fledged branches across the country and partners with many more installers in all regions, some of which specialize exclusively in working with Hikvision products.
The credo of “being close to our customers” defines the ambitions of smaller brands—but it no longer comes automatically.
Many successful local manufacturers, however, continue to rely on the trust they have gained from legacy customers at a time when the industry was more fragmented. Knowing the risks, they’re continuing to refine their solutions, seeking to specialize further and further as bigger players are breathing down their necks.
Bettini, for example, was the first Italian company to manufacture NVRs and DVRs, designing them specifically for banks and other financial institutions. They continue to dominate the vertical thanks to focusing on “100% video security” and compatibility across all Bettini products, including its first-ever devices delivered to customers 25 years ago. Bettini also offers highly specific solutions, for example for walk-in ATMs built according to Italian standards. Partnering with Korean company Vueron, Bettini offers AI for its edge devices designed for narrowly defined scenarios: Multiple people in front of the ATM (triggering a “pre-alert”); ATM users hiding their faces (raising the alert level); or an intoxicated or homeless person preparing to sleep in the ATM room (triggering a voice alert and notifying a security service provider.
Aside from building on legacy customers, some local companies exhibiting at SICUREZZA have indeed managed to react to novel circumstances faster than global competitors. After the first high-profile vehicle attacks on events such as Christmas markets across Europe in the early 2010s, CAME developed smart bollards that could be integrated with Italian public security infrastructures. As the first mover, the access control company achieved dominance in the Italian market for smart bollards. The devices, integrated with CAME access control solutions, remain a key differentiator in the Italian market.
A company with a decisively more international outlook is Germany’s Dallmeier. The company specializes in multifocal sensor technology and has, for example, a dominating market share in casino deployments in Macau.
Christian Linthaler, Chief Sales Officer at Dallmeier, is confident the company’s AI—built and trained for narrowly defined purposes, such as keeping run and taxiways at airports safe—is as good as everybody else’s, even though it cannot test and refine tens of thousands of devices simultaneously in real-life deployments.
Dallmeier is not afraid to compete globally, even though regulatory regimes also play a role in where the company puts its focus, Linthaler said, adding that he recently filed for STQC certification in India.
Price-quality signaling
Brands such as Bettini, CAME and Dallmeier don’t compete primarily in price-sensitive volume segments of the market, and as “Made-in-Europe” brands they probably shouldn’t. The label, be it “Germany” or “Italy,” is understood by customers as a shorthand for quality, cybersecurity and compliance, while being at least on par in technological prowess with solutions of American and Asian competitors.
Prices that would be perceived as unusually low for “Made-in-Europe” products might call into question whether their manufacturers are seriously trying to keep their implicit promises.
Competitive prices, however, were another common theme during conversations at SICUREZZA. The main argument was TCO, or total cost of ownership, factoring in costs that users will (or will not) incur over the lifetime of their security deployments, including updates, repairs, premature replacement cycles and other costs incurred due to failures.
VIVOTEK, a Taiwanese manufacturer that mainly showcased its hybrid cloud architectures at SICUREZZA, highlighted that efficient deployment is key to keeping costs down.
“We do not just enable customers to integrate legacy devices, we also ensure they get the best-possible performance out of their system, even though they rely heavily on cameras that are 5, 10 or 15 years old,” said Diego Perissinotto, Business Development Manager Italy & Iberia at VIVOTEK. “With a few modern AI cameras in strategic spots, our cloud solutions can deliver the best performance across the whole system. Customers don’t need to install the latest AI cameras in areas where the performance of legacy cameras is still good enough.”
Aside from this “honest salesman” argument, Perissinotto also highlighted a technology that is often evoked as a key differentiator between different brands: The performance of their cloud solutions, but also their self-imposed limitations.
“Only metadata is streamed to the cloud unless an event is triggered that requires an immediate analytics response,” Perissinotto said. “Storage may remain fully on-prem.”
With the most significant “cloud-first” companies, such as Verkada or Eagle Eye Networks, notably absent at SICUREZZA, many exhibitors had an implicit message: “We offer cloud solutions, but regardless of whether you deploy them, you stay in control of your data, where it is being processed and stored.”
Some of the big Chinese companies exhibiting in Milan also addressed this issue, knowing they’re under heightened scrutiny in the West. One of them advertised a “100% on-prem” solution, guaranteeing that all AI analytics run locally on DVRs and NVRs. No data will be sent to the cloud; no “connectivity issues” can affect the system’s performance.
Conclusion: Success despite Chinese prowess
Many important things were not said out loud at SICUREZZA, as is common practice in the industry, every industry, but the most important messages still came across clearly.
Chinese manufacturers offer ever-more refined technology at impeccable built quality. They are often closer to their customers than their local competitors. And yet, smaller brands continue to carve out their niches, especially in tightly regulated markets.
“Built-in-compliance,” trust gained over decades, and deliberately narrow AI solutions tip the scale in their favor in many cases, even when their prices are less competitive.