Home security systems vendors have capitalized on the emerging U.S. smart home market to attain first position in installed homes. But although monitored home security service providers such as ADT will maintain their market-leading position over the next five years, their market share will drop sharply, according to a new report from ABI Research.
ABI forecasts the U.S. market for smart home services will grow 37% between 2013 and 2019. Heightened competition from both within and outside the smart home security market segment will drive monitored home security providers’ market share down more than 50% over the next five years, according to the latest from ABI’s Smart Home Research Service.
Offering a broader range of services and bundling them together, ABI analysts forecast telcos, cable providers and retailers, including AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Lowes, Staples and Vivint, will erode monitored security providers’ early-mover advantage and take a serious bite out of their smart home equipment and services market share.
“The potential for each vendor in the managed smart home market stems not just from their current offerings, but also from their ability to introduce smart home services to new and existing customers,” ABI principal analyst Jonathan Collins was quoted in a press release. “Monitored security has long seen its market penetration stymied and the ability of smart home applications to widen its appeal is uncertain at best.”
That will leave monitored home security providers with a choice of continuing to bundle smart home service with monitored security or creating entry-level smart home offerings, ABI says. Competing smart home vendors, including telcos and cable companies, are testing smart home offerings of varying types, costs, functionality, device support and contract length, including bundled service offerings, in an attempt to hit upon a viable, competition-beating business model.
