The World’s Biggest Surveillance Company in China

After the 9/11 incident in 2001, the world’s security requirements escalated rapidly. Taking advantage of this, some engineers from China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), which manufactures electronic equipment for both civilian and military uses, founded Hikvision. The company has also been committed to go global since the start. It started registering its name as a trademark in more than hundred countries around the world as early as 2004.In 2008, Hikvision transferred 48% of its shares to CETC, making Hikvision officially a subsidiary of a state-owned company. With the help of the state-owned background, it has grown rapidly and got various businesses from local governments to build policing or traffic control systems, particularly as a major contractor for the China’s Skynet project to monitor Chinese citizens. It has designed and built special surveillance systems for the China’s oppression of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

Due to the company’s close links with the Communist China’s Government, its ability to manufacture the products at cheap prices has helped make Hikvision the largest manufacturer of video surveillance equipment in the world. According to a conservative estimate by the industry research organization Top10VPN in 2021, Hikvision has more than 4.8 million video surveillance networks in 191 countries and regions outside Communist China, including over 600,000 in the United States and more than 55,000 in London, England.