Smart home: the market grows, but it is still small

The Italians love the smart home, given that between January and June of this year ”sales of smart devices in our country have grown by 5% per unit and 9% in value. The trend is even more positive (+25% in value) if we exclude Smart TVs from the count, which are by far the most sold connected product at the moment”. This is what the survey by Gfk, a company active in the field of social and market research, presented in Berlin at the recent exhibition on electronics IFA, says. The market is therefore growing. In particular, the ”Large Connected Household Appliance (+39% in value) and home automation and security devices (+27%)” are going strong. But ”the Small Appliance (+8%) and Home Entertainment (+5%) segments are also growing. And on the rise there are also ”washing machines, audio home systems (which also include voice assistants), LED bulbs and air conditioning systems (thermostats and air conditioning),” explains Gfk.

Good news, shortly, confirming that Italians have a strong passion for electronics, especially for the new generation. And a good news, after all, is that Gfk judges the smart home market ”still in an embryonic stage”. This means that there is plenty of room for growth, bearing in mind that in more developed markets such as Germany, Great Britain and France, turnover in the first few months of 2018 reached 5.4 billion euros. What is the gap between us? Essentially cultural, Gfk explains. ”When asked ”what technology will really change our lives”, the smart home is only mentioned by 28% of Italians, behind better known technologies such as Mobile Payment, 3D printers and Wearables. If only 5% of the Italians think they are familiar with smart home technologies (in China the percentage rises to 25, in the United States to 22), the prospects for market growth are interesting because ”about 35% of the Italians say they want to buy at least one smart device in the next two years. 

There is work to be done to encourage the development of the smart home, as indicated by the Gfk survey. First of all, the removal of significant obstacles such as ”the perception of a high cost, the lack of knowledge of the products, the problems related to the stability of the Internet connection (and without a connection there is no smart that holds!) and the compatibility between devices of different brands.

Written by Smart Building Italy, on September 7th, 2018