Smart homes to be majority in North America by 2021: Berg Insight

The number of smart homes in North America is expected to reach 73 million by 2021, comprising 55 percent of all households, based on a study conducted by Berg Insight.

North America is the world’s most advanced smart home market and the region had an installed base of 21.8 million smart homes at the end of 2016, a 47 percent year-on-year growth.

The European market is still a few years behind North America in terms of penetration and market maturity. At the end of 2016, there were 8.5 million smart homes in Europe and the market is forecasted to grow at an annual growth rate of 57 percent in the next five years to reach 80.6 million smart homes by 2021, which corresponds to 36 percent of all European households.

“2017 is anticipated to be a good year for smart home technology as entry-level smart home systems have become affordable for the mass market, at the same time as the reliability and features have improved significantly,” says Anders Frick, Senior Analyst at Berg Insight. New innovative user interfaces are also important as a catalyst for market growth.

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 IKEA, Philips Lighting, Honeywell, Belkin, Nest, Ecobee, Somfy, 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.

Berg Insight anticipates that the popularity of voice-enabled speakers will continue to increase and that smart speakers will be one of the most significant user interfaces in the home environment. “Amazon is still the leading player but Google’s and Apple’s ecosystems are stronger, at least outside North America,” says Mr. Frick.