New smart home installations in EU and N.America to reach 21.5M in 2017

The market researcher Berg Insight has reported the number of new smart home installations in North America is on track to reach 2.3 million in 2013, an increase of 66 percent year-on-year. The strong growth is expected to last for years to come, driving the number of new installations each year to 12.8 million by 2017. As a result, penetration of smart home systems in North American households will increase from just 3.2 percent at the end of 2013 to 16.6 percent in 2017. The European market for smart home systems is about three years behind North America in terms of penetration and market maturity. In 2012, there were 0.5 million new smart home installations in EU27+2 and installations are expected to reach 0.7 million in 2013. Berg Insight believes that the European market is on the brink of entering a strong growth phase similar to that witnessed in North America. The market is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 78 percent during the next five years, reaching 8.7 million new smart home installations in 2017. The penetration of smart home systems in EU27+2 households will at the same time increase from 0.4 percent in 2012 to 5.9 percent by 2017. Home automation technologies have been around for decades, but have up till recently been a niche segment mainly for the very affluent or extreme technophiles. The main reasons for this are that the cos...