Surveillance cameras continue to be the most desired security equipment. Peru's strong economy and interest in technology are turning the country into one of the markets in which CCTV is strong.
By Ana María Restrepo F.
Since the economic crisis began in the United States and Europe, Latin America was filled with fears about this situation and more about the advent of a time of scarcity that would represent greater poverty for the region, however the crisis did not hit as hard as expected and some countries although they did not reach the economic growth that had been predicted in previous years, they managed to get ahead without losses, so to speak.
At the end of 2010, ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) mentioned a 6% growth of the region's economy and predicted a moderate expansion of 4.2% for 2011.
According to the report, the southern cone will be the one with the highest growth, with Paraguay, Uruguay and Peru leading this growth with 9.7%, 9% and 8.6% respectively.
Speaking specifically of Peru, the economy grew in February 2011 by 8.53%, with the manufacturing, trade, transport and communications sectors presenting the highest demand.
According to data announced by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), Peru's local economy grew in the first two months of the year by 9.28%, accumulating in the last 12 months an expansion of 9.50%, and in the first quarter of the year it would have closed it with a growth of more than 9%, according to data from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF).
For its part, the International Monetary Fund considers that this South American country could grow by more than 6% in the next four years.
Safe economic steps
Like all Latin American countries, the security dilemma in Peru is increasing every day, either because you have a good economy or because you do not have it and even more so in this time of elections (April – June 2011) where the population, the government, the candidates and the criminals expose in one way or another their preferences.
To this are also added the criminal actions such as robberies of commercial establishments and others that occur in some areas of the country.
It should be clarified that the economic situation positively or negatively influences the security of a nation and the past events of the economic crisis created some situations of insecurity around the world, which is why most governments, companies and individuals acquired security systems, particularly surveillance cameras; for this reason
SECURITY SALES spoke with some electronic security professionals in Peru with the purpose of talking about the CCTV industry in the country.
Mónica Salcedo González, general manager of Alfa Systems SAC (wholesaler of electronic security equipment); and Manuel Rebagliati, regional manager for South America of LRG International, talked about the most marketed and sold products, the least sold, the most used transmission mode and as well as the type of monitoring, in addition to which are the sectors that most demand this solutions.
Those who ask for surveillance the most
Manuel Rebagliati assures that the field of CCTV in Peru has grown notoriously, however it is difficult to define which sectors of this market lead it.
"There are several segments and different requirements in this market. I would say that as far as the volume of units is still led by analog technology, now we must make it clear that when we talk about analog cameras, we are talking about something that has a wide spectrum, it is not the same a high-tech analog camera with A1 Chipset, 1/3" Super HAD IT CCD, True day / night (ICR), 650 TV lines, eXtended Dynamic Range (XDR) and much more, than a low quality and very low price camera. Unfortunately the latter by the price factor are the ones with the highest volume of sales if we talk about units".
The residential market and that of small businesses are the ones that most implement analog technology because they demand little in terms of quality, but a lot in the low price, factors that can occur due to technical ignorance; while in the state sectors, large shopping centers and supermarket chains the need for high technology was accentuated during 2010.
"For some years now, VGA ip digital cameras have been used in the field of citizen security and traffic control, but the need to be able to identify a person or the license of a car 50 or 100 meters away is leading them to migrate quickly to megapixel or High Definition (HD) technology, while IP VGA technology brought an improvement in the ease of communication. Megapixel cameras took the great technological leap, revolutionized the market and especially that of CCTV users in Peru is quickly oriented along this path, "says Manuel.
According to the above, Mónica Salcedo explains that analog cameras are purchased by the Government, commerce, residences, industry and office buildings, while digital cameras by commerce, megapixels by office buildings and hybrid CCTV are preferred by commerce and also offices.
For the recording, the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) continues to be the proerido of the Government, residences, commerce, industry and offices, and the NVR (Network Video Recorder) is used more by some merchants and office workers.
For the transmission of data the UTP is the king, commerce, industry, residences, offices and Government choose it, the IP is used by commerce and offices and the wireless mainly by the Government.
Mónica reinforces Manuel's statement about the high use of analog cameras, she also explains that IPs are moving for video surveillance solutions although there are wireless analog signal transmitters, such as those of Verint, which do not require the cameras to be IP. "Each integrator makes its design according to the characteristics of the field and customer need, but what we see is that even the sales of analog against IP are 80 to 20," he emphasizes.
Sustained growth
In recent years the CCTV market has shown good growth in Peru. For Alfa Systems SAC 2010 was one of the best years, as the increase was 100% compared to 2009.
The distribution company considers that the participation of IP solutions will grow in the CCTV market, but at a moderate maximum range of 7 to 10% because most acquisitions are being made on structures already designed so generating a network structure only for video is complicated. "The bandwidths of data networks are not very high and placing IP cameras would consume absolutely everything or only separate a small percentage for the transit of images. This obviously leads to the images displayed and recorded being of poor quality and few frames, "says Salcedo.
For his part, Manuel Rebagliati explains that the segments of Industry and business and corporate buildings in Peru some years ago opted for digital IP technology and considers that the same phenomenon of migration to megapixel IP technology is taking place in the banking market due to its imperative need to identify people and vehicles, although some years ago Peru has established itself as the country in Latin America with the lowest rate of assaults and robberies of banking and financial institutions thanks to good organization and constant technological improvement.
Marketing channels
For home users and small merchants, the simplest and easiest way to reach them is through television, the most accepted means to "roll" advertising.
But not only do they get publicity, but also news reports of criminal acts which encourages them to seek forms of protection, in addition to emails full of information from Chinese manufacturers.
Likewise, Manuel explains that the marketing modalities of large high-tech CCTV projects are handled technically and commercially by integrating companies, who represent important brands and import directly from the manufacturer; on the other hand, medium-sized installation companies import something directly and often through Miami exporters, but they also buy from local distributors that are becoming more and better.
Main players
The market in Peru is managed through integrators since the distributor/ wholesaler has a clear concept of avoiding competition with your customers, according to Mónica.
And like any channel they look for the best manufacturers to supply the market. Rebagliati mentions that the main brands that lead the market are: Bosch, Samsung, Pelco, Sony, Panasonic, Digimerge, for VGA IP cameras are Vivotec, Axis, Savio, among others and the field of high-tech megapixels (HD) is led by Arecont Vision, although Axis and Vivotec are gaining strength in the Peruvian market.
It should also be borne in mind that due to the increase in sales the price of these equipment has varied. Mónica explains that in her case the prices have fallen because they are importing greater volumes of solutions, in addition the box type cameras continue to arrive, but new technologies such as bullet type with varifocal lenses are entering, among other novelties.
Promising future
If we take into account that Peru is among the main economies in the region and that its rates of violence are lower than those of many countries, we can predict a good future for the nation, although it hurts to say that insecurity is the main cause for which electronic security equipment is purchased; however, today these equipment not only serve to provide security but also for other types of controls such as traffic.
Both Monica and Manuel are optimistic about looking to the future and see it with very good eyes. Monica believes that growth for 2011 will be more than 50%.
"While it was true that until a couple of years ago, most of all CCTV sales were for Lima, today cities such as Chiclayo, Piura, Arequipa, Cuzco and many others have very interesting citizen security projects and this without counting the important mining sector that has a great demand in this field," says Manuel.
