Asia to reach 30% of global smart home market by 2030

PETALING JAYA (Jan 16): By 2030, Asia’s burgeoning smart home market will grow to US$115 billion (RM513 billion), accounting for 30% of the global share, according to global management consulting firm A T Kearney.

In its latest report “The Battle for the Smart Home: Open to All”, the firm forecasted the global smart home market to grow from the current US$15 billion to US$50 billion by 2020 and to US$400 billion by 2030.

The growth in Asia will be driven mainly by China and Japan, as well as highly-connected economies such as Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, noted the report.

“Asia’s socioeconomic landscape provides a great opportunity for the region to be a global driver of growth in the smart home sector over the next few years.

“While the smartphone market is peaking out, the smart home market is becoming the next promising market,” said partner and Asia Pacific head of communications, media and technology for A T Kearney, Nikolai Dobberstein. He is also the co-author of the report.

According to Dobberstein, Japan, which is already among the top five global markets in terms of smart home penetration, will see continued growth driven by an ageing population enticing households to install health and wellness solutions.

“The opportunity in China is even greater with a phenomenal number of households seeing increased incomes, and a strong local manufacturing and technology ecosystem.

“Meanwhile, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore are all expected to have high penetration of smart homes given the large proportion of high-income households and the data connectivity in these economies,” he said.

Meanwhile, partner of A T Kearney Singapore Sridhar Narasimban added that to succeed in the sector, companies will need to balance local and global strategies, evolve products quickly to be service-oriented, partner with the right industry players and come up with a standardised way for different products to speak to each other.

The report added that the idea of smart homes is becoming a reality in Asia due to major shifts that are accelerating market expansion: connectedness and intelligence, interoperability, product availability and cost, as well as new monetisation models.