Wi-Fi to Hold Over 40% Share of 8 Million Unit Smart Thermostat Market by 2018

​The global smart thermostats market is expected to grow from 1.3 million in 2013 to 8 million unit shipments in 2018; a CAGR of 43%. Disruptive innovation in thermostats from new entrants such as Nest Labs, ecobee, and EcoFator has significantly raised the bar for product design and innovation in a device category that had seen little change over several decades.

Smart thermostat global revenues are expected to see fivefold growth to reach $600 million by 2018. Currently, North America is the most lucrative market for smart thermostats, contributing more than half the worldwide total. Driving this region’s dominant market share is a tech-savvy population adopting smart mobile devices packed with low-cost wireless sensors, an expanding install base of buildings connected with smart meters, home automation initiatives from Telco’s and Cable companies, and a slowly recovering housing market.

Smart thermostat shipments to Europe will exceed North American shipments in 2017 to become the biggest market worldwide over the forecast period. “The prolonged economic recession in Europe, EU directives on household energy efficiency and regional utility provider conservation programs are changing European consumer views on energy usage. Smart thermostats are serving a growing and increasingly thrifty base of energy conscious customers in this region,” comments senior analyst, Adarsh Krishnan.

Wi-Fi controls the lion’s share of the market at present and will continue to be the popular choice among device manufacturers—shipments are forecast to exceed 3 million units in 2018. The ubiquity of Wi-Fi as a residential HAN technology and its penetration in smartphones make it an ideal choice for consumers and device manufacturers. ZigBee enabled smart thermostats will witness growing market share with over 2 million units shipped annually in 2018.

These findings are part of ABI Research’s Smart Home Research Service which examines the market for monitoring and control technologies used for automation applications in the home, including energy management, connected appliances, security management, healthcare, entertainment, and lighting control.

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