Smart home market to rebound in H2 after shaky Q2

The EMEA smart home market is expected to make a comeback in H2 2020 following a slump in the first half of the year.

According to IDC, the smart home market declined by 7.2% in Q2 year-over-year, with the market accounting for 20.29 million shipments between April and June. Amazon and Google were the only vendors which actually saw an increase in shipments during the quarter – up 17.1% and 0.2% – while the likes of Samsung, LG and Sony all saw shipments drop by between 18.4%-27.4%.

IDC senior research analyst Antonio Arantes noted that “almost all product categories declined.” This, he said, was in part due to the postponement of major sporting events like the Tokyo Olympics and the UEFA Euros, with smart TVs seeing a double-digit decrease in shipments.

The CEE market was the worst hit by the decline, with shipments of all smart home devices dropping by 19.5%.

Video entertainment device shipments overall declined by 12.1% across EMEA, while smart speakers growing by 8.9% to reach nearly 4.5 million units. For the latter category, Amazon and Google make up more than 90% of the total market.

The other category making up home monitoring, lighting and thermostats dropped by 13.7% in Q2.

In spite of a poor quarter, IDC expects the smart home market to rebound in the second half of the year due to the launch of new devices from Google, Amazon and Apple, the Amazon Prime Day sales event and Black Friday.

Jan Prenosil, senior research analyst for smart home devices in CEE said: “We expect further growth in the TV product category in the long term On one hand, better display quality, updated HbbTV content, integration with streaming platforms, and smart assistants, and on the other hand a lower market share of smart TV devices will have a positive effect on demand in CEE.”

By 2024, the smart home market is expected to reach more than 200 million units, and grow at a CAGR of 16.19% in 2020–2024.