Number of Smart Homes in EU and N.A. Reached 17.9M in 2015

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According to a new research report from Berg Insight, the number smart homes in Europe and North America reached 17.9 million in 2015. North America is the world’s most advanced smart home market and the region had an installed base of 12.7 million smart homes at the end of the year, a 56 percent year-on-year growth.  The strong market growth is expected to last for years to come, driving the number of smart homes in North America to 46.2 million by 2020, which corresponds to 35 percent of all households. The European market is 2–3 years behind North America in terms of penetration and market maturity. At the end of 2015, there were 5.3 million smart homes in Europe and the market is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 54 percent in the next five years to reach 44.9 million smart homes by 2020, which corresponds to 20 percent of all European households. The most successful products on the smart home market include smart thermostats, security systems, smart light bulbs, network cameras and multi-room audio systems from vendors such as Philips Lighting, Honeywell, Belkin, Nest, Ecobee, MyFox, Sonos, Canary, Netatmo and D-Link. Major vendors of comprehensive whole-home smart home systems include a mix of energy-, security- and communication service providers and home automation specialists such as Vivint, ADT, Comcast, Control4 and AT&T in North America and Verisure, eQ-3, RWE, Deutsche Telekom and Loxone in Europe.

“There is no doubt that regular consumers in the future will own and operate a wide range of connected objects in their homes, from connected home appliances and luminaires to thermostats and security devices” said Johan Svanberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. The smart home market is still in its infancy though and many smart home ecosystems are underdeveloped and products are often complicated to use. “Attractive use cases, interoperable devices and well-implemented user interfaces are needed in order to accelerate the market”, added Mr. Svanberg. Several ICT industry giants are now betting on voice driven user interfaces to make it easier to control smart home solutions. The Alexa service from Amazon has quickly become popular and shows the value of smart home solutions to a broader audience. Furthermore, Apple’s HomeKit platform supports the company’s voice driven digital assistant Siri. Microsoft is likely to push their Cortana service as a foundation for controlling connected devices and services and Google announced its conversational digital assistant named Google Assistant in May 2016.

About Berg Insight

Berg Insight is a dedicated M2M/IoT market research firm based in Sweden. We have been specialising in all major M2M/IoT verticals such as fleet management, car telematics, smart metering, smart homes, mHealth and industrial M2M since 2004. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of intelligence for our customers. Berg Insight offers numerous market reports, detailed market forecast databases and advisory services. We provide custom research tailored to your requirements including focussed research papers, business case analysis, go-to-market strategies and bespoke market forecasting. We have provided analytical services to 850 clients in 70 countries on six continents to date. Our customers range from many of the world’s largest mobile operators, IT companies and telecom vendors, to venture capitalists, technology start-ups and specialist consultants.