New Study Projects 74.6 Million Smart Meters Will be Shipped Worldwide Annually by 2015.
IDC Energy Insights announced today the availability of a new data product – the Worldwide Quarterly Smart Meter Tracker – forecasting a worldwide compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.0% in smart meter unit shipments from 2010 to 2015 and a total of 460.9 million smart meters shipped through the forecast period.
Over the past year, growth in the market was driven strongly by government stimulus funding, which helped accelerate the speed at which projects were deployed, especially in the United States. While the speed of market adoption in the United States and EMEA has driven recent growth, looking forward, IDC Energy Insights forecasts that adoption in Europe and Asia/Pacific, mainly China, will act as the primary catalyst for market growth for the next 5-10 years.
“The bubble of opportunity for smart meter and communications vendors to capitalize on the expected growth of this market is now,” said Ryan Reith, program manager, IDC Energy Insights Tracker products. “Recent data from our Smart Meter Tracker research program clearly shows that both governments and vendors, including IT powerhouses like HP and IBM, will drive the deployment of smart meters and smart grid initiatives worldwide. We expect this space to quickly move from 5-7 strong vendors today to a competitive landscape of regional manufacturers competing for high-profile contracts in emerging markets.”
Market penetration of smart meters is widely considered to be a key enabler of the smart grid.
“These smart meter deployments represent the first wave of smart grid investment by utility companies worldwide,” said Rick Nicholson, group vice president, IDC Energy Insights. “Once the smart meters and communication networks are in place, we expect to see additional investment on the customer side of the meter in home energy management and smart building technologies as well as on the utility side of the meter in distribution management and distribution automation.”
The Worldwide Quarterly Smart Meter Tracker also identifies top vendors in the market and ranks them by market share based on shipments.
Rank/Vendor/Market Share (%):
1. Itron: 35.7%
2. Landis+Gyr: 26.3%
3. Sensus: 19.5%
4. GE: 10.9%
5. Elster: 6.9%
Additional vendor data reveals:
- Top vendors of communications modules in North America include Itron, Silver Spring Networks, Sensus, Landis+Gyr, Elster, Alcara, and Trilliant.
- In EMEA, the top 5 smart meter vendors for 2010 shipments include Itron, Enel, Landis+Gyr, Echelon, Iskraemeco.
According to IDC Energy Insights, smart meters are defined as solid state electric meters with integrated two-way communications capabilities. Smart meters support multiple wireless and power line communications technologies and enable a range of energy efficiency and demand response applications.
The Worldwide Quarterly Smart Meter Tracker includes quarterly shipment and forecast analysis by region for North American, EMEA and the rest of the world, including market size and vendor share as well as detailed market segmentation and product attributes such as meter type and communications module, among others. The data can be downloaded in pre-formatted tables or via a robust web-based query tool. IDC Energy Insights will launch additional new tracker products in June with data on Photovoltaic Modules and on Solar Inverters.
“This Smart Meter Tracker breaks new ground by forecasting market size in annual unit shipments by technology and by region, which is enormously informative during the planning processes of vendors of smart meters and their components,” added Reith.
