the interview Michael Chen, VP, Dahua Technology, about growth: A sales revenue increase of ten times in five to seven years Dahua Technology Vice President Michael Chen hopes the company will be able to increase its sales revenue by tenfold in five to seven years. In this interview with Detektor, he declares how deep learning and artificial intelligence will change the physical security industry and why other countries should get inspired by China’s investments in city surveillance. By Henrik Söderlund Zhejiang Dahua Technology is the world’s second biggest video surveillance manufacturer and has around 13,000 employees. The company turnover reached 1.93 billion US dollars in 2016 and it continues to grow very fast. According to a recent report from IHS Markit, in 2016, China accounted for 42 per cent of the global video surveillance market. And looking at the whole physical security equipment market, by 2021 China will be larger than the North American and Western European markets combined, and account for 38 per cent of the global market. Most of this growth will come from video surveillance equipment. Detektor met up with Dahua’s Vice President Michael Chen to let him give his view on the market, the biggest trends and challenges ahead. What is your view on the global surveillance market? How is it changing? “Everyone is talking about the technology and artificial intelligence, but it will take some time for them to be integrated into security. Security is still quite different from other industries. We are expanding our business scope, for example we have intelligent locks for the consumer market, but it will all be centered around video technology. It will take some time for this industry to change.” What can other countries learn from China? “I hope governments will spend more time thinking about what China is doing. Because China has got more than 1.3 billion people and you can feel safe to walk on the streets in the middle of the night here. The crime rate has greatly decreased in China because of this technology. Video surveillance technology is changing and will be integrated with artificial intelligence. I think it should be widely adopted in other countries too, that would protect people’s lives.” Dahua has been growing very fast, how long can that fast growth continue? “In 2015, our sales revenue reached 10 billion RMB, which is a very good number for a Chinese company and last year we reached 13.3 billion RMB. In the first half of this year, our growth rate remains at 50 per cent. In five to seven years, we hope to reach ten times that of last year, which means around 100 billion RMB. The growth rate of the sales revenue will be very high.” Do you think that is possible? “Yes, I do. We have the technology, we have the products, we have solutions and even more important: we have a lot of customers and a lot of end users that are fans of Dahua products.“ Will the growth mainly derive from China? “The Chinese market is very big and we have one sixth of the global population. And population always means market, at least to me. The Chinese economy is booming but there is also great demand elsewhere due to political and economic situations. If you want to maintain and keep a peace- Michael Chen, Dahua’s Vice President. ful society, you need some kind of technology to protect the people. I think the growth rate in China will be very fast, but this industry is also booming in other places. I am optimistic; there is great demand in this market.” What is the biggest trend on the market? “I think that the artificial intelligence will be a popular technology and it will be integrated into the security industry. It will make people’s lives more secure and they can enjoy a smarter and more intelligent life than before.” How will deep learning and artificial intelligence change the physical security industry? “Deep learning and artificial intelligence will make the technology more advanced. Before you could only recognise the face, now you can see facial expressions and judge whether the teacher is a good teacher or a bad teacher. I think that is very good.” Other than deep learning, cyber security is a major buzzword in the industry. How do you work with cyber security? “Our company pays great attention to the cyber security issue, actually we have established a special engineering team to set and enforce a high standard for cyber security. That is also the reason for why we delay the launching of some products, because we put more time into improving the cyber security. We really pay a lot of attention to this issue.” What is your biggest challenge? “Of course there are several challenges. One is the technology; we are not sure in which direction the technology will lead us. We have made significant investment ”Deep learning and artificial intelligence will make the technology more advanced.” how old the person is. Some day I even think it will be possible to say where you come from. Deep learning and artificial intelligence will make the data more exact. An example is a classroom: students sit there listening to the teacher and with deep learning, you can see how many of them that are smiling, feeling sad and how many students that do not understand what the teacher is saying. Based on that, you can in research and development, but a disruptive change in technology at some point might make it difficult for us to catch up. Sometimes, something suddenly happens in a market, a new technology can be launched and change the whole industry, like what happened with the Iphone. Nokia used to be number one, but when the Iphone came, it changed totally. These are the challenges I think we are facing.” Security News Every Day – www. securityworldmarket.com dete kto r in te r n at i on al • 37