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A report from Berg Insight claims that the number of smart homes in Europe and North America totalled 17.9 million in 2015.
The smart home market is witnessing strong demand for products such as smart thermostats, security systems, smart light bulbs, network cameras and multi-room audio systems, with prominent vendors including Philips Lighting, Honeywell, Belkin, Nest, Ecobee, MyFox, Sonos, Canary, Netatmo and D-Link.
North America is the market that has witnessed the greatest penetration, with an installed base of 12.7 million smart homes at the end of 2015, seeing growth of 56% year on year. Robust market growth is anticipated for years to come, increasing the number of smart homes in North America to 46.2 million by 2020, which comprises 35% of all households.
The European market is two to three years behind North America in terms of penetration and market maturity, the researchers argue, with 5.3 million smart homes in the region at the end of 2015. The market is anticipated to see a compound annual growth rate of 54% in the next five years to reach 44.9 million smart homes by 2020, which accounts for 20% of all households in the region.
Johan Svanberg, senior analyst at Berg Insight, said, “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. 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,” he added. “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.”
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