Hikvision North America’s Jeffrey He Talks Company’s Progress, Cybersecurity, Growth, Partner.Win.
On the eve of ASIS 2017, HikWire sat down with Jeffrey He, president of Hikvision USA Inc. and Hikvision Canada Inc., to discuss Hikvision growth, cybersecurity efforts and Hikvision’s Partner.Win. strategy.
HikWire: How has Hikvision’s growth been in 2017 so year far and how is Q4 looking?
JH: Hikvision has experienced impressive global growth in 2017, including North America. Demand for Hikvision cameras continues to grow, and we’re increasing production to keep up with that demand. In 2016, we produced 55 million cameras worldwide. In the first half of 2017, Hikvision produced 32 million cameras.
The most recent financial report showed year-over-year double-digit increases in operating income and net profit during the first half of 2017. During that time period, Hikvision’s total operating income was $2.4 billion (RMB ¥16.45 billion), which represents a year-over-year increase of 31 percent compared to $1.8 billion (RMB ¥12.55 billion) achieved in the first six months of 2016.
To support our growth in North America we opened the R&D Centre in Montreal, which focuses on developing new technologies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). We also continue to grow our field staff of sales, engineering and technical professionals, who are on hand to support our integrator partners in major markets across North America. We’re looking at having 350 employees by the end of 2017, and by 2022 we project Hikvision North America will employ 800 professionals. We’re creating hundreds of well-paying professional jobs and we’re recruiting top talent to fill those positions. We want to make sure that our company’s success translates directly into success of our employees, our partners and their families in any community we serve.
HikWire: What will you be talking to customers about at ASIS 2017?
JH: Hikvision is a partner to win with. Partner.Win.—That’s our message. Just two simple steps, cause and effect. Today we work with many of the top integrators in North America, and it is our goal to get to know many more of the top integrators and to work with them as well. We’ll be meeting with existing integrator customers and potential future partners. Our partners know that beyond Hikvision’s high quality, secure video surveillance solutions, we have a network of sales, engineering and technical professionals to support customers in the field. When our customers partner with Hikvision, they know that we’ll be with them every step of the way; they know they’ve joined a winning team. We have a tremendous technical, sales and engineering network in place now, and we’re working to expand our field staff to provide even more extensive resources to our customers. That’s how we ensure mutual success.
HikWire: How is Hikvision addressing cybersecurity issues?
JH: Hikvision works every single day to ensure that we provide high quality secure products for the market. It is a challenge for us, as it is for all video surveillance manufacturers, but going through this process helps us continue to improve on our product line and help our partners succeed with us. It is important to acknowledge that no product or security system is 100 percent secure from a cybersecurity breach. Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE®) is an international cybersecurity community effort to assign common identifiers for publicly known cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Out of more than 200 CVE security vulnerabilities assigned to products in the video surveillance industry, only 8 CVEs have been issued for Hikvision products. All of these vulnerabilities have been patched in the latest version of firmware, which is available from our website.
HikWire: Some in the blogosphere are very critical of Hikvision’s record on cybersecurity.
JH: It’s true: Hikvision has a vocal detractor or two. Of course, we expect questions. Like other video surveillance providers, we discuss cybersecurity questions and concerns with customers regularly. However, Hikvision upholds its professional standards and does not campaign against other competitors or any other third parties. Hikvision understands that as the largest video surveillance provider in the world, a certain amount of criticism comes with the territory. But on cybersecurity, the bottom line is that it’s an ongoing challenge, as the CVE report demonstrates.
In recent years an online blogger has sought to gain blog subscribers with tabloid-style attacks on Hikvision and by promoting offensive rhetoric about China and the Chinese people. The online blogger entered new territory last week. In its most recent campaign for subscribers, the blogger provided hacking tutorials in his blog and he posted instructions on how to hack Hikvision products on YouTube, while openly encouraging people to remove Hikvision products from all their installations. Many in the industry, Hikvision included, consider these tactics as crossing the line of professionalism. These actions distract from real issues our industry is helping to solve, specifically terrorism and criminal activity. Hikvision is committed to its cybersecurity efforts, and we will continue to work with other video surveillance providers, industry associations and other professional organizations to develop, implement and promote cybersecurity best practices.