Metering market to reach $26.8bn!

The 1.8 billion unit global electricity metering market is undergoing a shift from legacy to smart metering technologies. Higher value smart meters will boost the global market from its current $9bn annual size to $26.8bn per year by 2024, according to a new dataset published today by Northeast Group, LLC.

“Smart meters – or advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) – will create a higher value market over the next decade,” according to Ben Gardner, president of Northeast Group. “These two-way communicating meters make up a key segment of the broader machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) markets. They typically cost between $105 to more than $250 per endpoint, depending on the country. This compares with $25 or less for many legacy meters.”

By 2024, there will be an installed base of nearly 1.1bn smart residential meters worldwide, or 57% market penetration. The top countries by value over the next decade will be the United States, Japan, China, Brazil, India, UK, France, Germany, Russia and Mexico. The AMI market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 22% compared with a much more modest 1.8% for the overall electricity metering market. Legacy metering will decline at a rate of 7.2% per year throughout the decade. Additionally, commercial and industrial electricity meters will be worth $3.1bn per year by 2024.

Geographically, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East will have the highest AMI growth rates over the decade. The lowest growth rates will be seen in Europe, Oceania and North America due to already existing installed bases of AMI meters.

Metering vendors, communications providers and semiconductor companies are positioning themselves to succeed in this large global market. Telecom operators are also eyeing the opportunities created by smart meters. According to Northeast Group’s forecasts, by 2024, 115m smart meters will operate using cellular communications. This will add M2M data revenues for telecom operators looking for new markets to boost stagnating revenues.

Northeast Group’s Global Electricity Metering Market dataset includes more than 48,000 data points. The research materials come with an Excel file and a summary presentation in PowerPoint. There are 125 individual countries covered in detail.