Cooperation crucial to claim camera market slice

Nguyen Trung Kien, CEO of Hanoi-based smart camera manufacturer Pavana Technologies JSC, noted that Vietnam’s camera market has been growing rapidly at 13-14 per cent annually, of which cameras for household use have expanded more swiftly at 17 per cent per year.

“Currently, local factory production capacity comes to around 2-2.5 million cameras per year. The market for surveillance cameras for infrastructure, enterprises, and government organisations remains underdeveloped in Vietnam, so it has large development potential,” said Kien.

Kien also revealed that based on diverse sources, the country’s camera market generated $175 million in revenue in 2023, of which Chinese brands Dahua and HikVision and their subsidiaries held nearly 90 per cent of the market share, with the rest mostly seized by smaller Chinese brands.

In the general camera market landscape, cameras for household use account for up to 48 per cent of the total revenue and 60 per cent of the total volume of the products in circulation.

Most of these products have a low value, ranging from $8.3 to below $42 per unit, being sold either online or without control in the domestic market.

Business executives in the field shared that locally-produced cameras struggled to compete with foreign low-cost cameras that are widely available in the Vietnamese market.

Availing the advantage of being produced in huge volume and receiving government support, Chinese camera makers are taking the upper hand over native producers in many countries.

Vo Duc Tho, CEO of AI camera startup Hanet Technology, said that the low cost of Chinese cameras came from the fact that they are produced in mass volumes of millions of units.

Hence, for market survival, local firms need to find a distinction, such as integrated AI or other features their foreign rivals have yet to embrace, and shouldn’t enter a price war with Chinese-made items.

Nguyen Tuan Anh, chairman of innovative startup Lumi Vietnam, said that the company is striving to best avail of smarthome technology and synchronised solutions to bolster competitiveness.

“The cost is by no means small when embracing a big solution, yet it could drop sharply through a shared use. The room for development in the Vietnamese market is still huge. The question is how to optimise the cost, master the technology, and elevate user experience? Local camera makers could form an alliance aimed at market dominance,” said Tuan Anh.

Viettel Telecom, part of tech giant Viettel Group, also envisages not competing through individual camera sales.

Nguyen Dang Trien, director of the IT Solutions and Digital Services Centre under Viettel Telecom, said that the business has enacted camera hardware technical specifications set to satisfy user requirements.

Viettel has integrated hardware and software applications, network layer, and servicers, including ensuring camera data storage in Vietnam for user protection.

“With this approach, the product price and relevant costs might be higher compared to several global platforms which manage huge volumes of cameras reaching several hundred million units. I believe to enhance competitiveness and ensure information security, it is necessary to have in place a set of criteria about basic network information security requirements, including technical specifications, to create fair competition between domestic businesses and their foreign peers operating in Vietnam,” said Trien.

Advocating the mindset, Nguyen Duc Quy, CEO of Vconnex Technology, which boasts international standard IoT platforms, said that independent local businesses often face myriad hardships.

“Local firms might be defeated at home if users continue to use the uncontrolled low-cost cameras that are ‘drifting’ into the domestic market. Therefore, it is important to have in place policies strong enough to support local firms before thinking of reaching out to the global market,” said Quy.

A GlobeNewswire report showed that the global security camera market value amounted to $12.83 billion in 2023, and is expected to touch $41.32 billion by 2032, eying a compound growth rate approximating 13.9 per cent annually.

In Vietnam, the demand for cameras is huge. The total market size might reach 100-150 million units a year, yet in fact the country just produces 10-15 million units, and needs to import 5-6 million units each year, mostly cameras for business and household use.

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