China and India driving $3T consumer electronics boom, smart home devices growing fastest

Populous countries in Asia Pacific — most notably China and India — are leading a nearly $3 trillion boom in the consumer electronics market between now and 2020, with smart home devices growing the fastest of any segment, according to a new report by Future Market Insights that came out Thursday.

Top players in the space include Apple (with its new Apple TV push), Samsung (with its SmartThings Hub announced earlier this year), HP (which just split into two companies this month), LG, Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, and Hitachi.

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The smart home devices category is subdivided into smart kitchen appliances and security, as well as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems (Samsung is getting very serious about air conditioning, as of last month).

Basically, we’re talking about any smart device (so most likely Internet-connected) that makes life easier for the average consumer in their home.

Nest’s smart thermostat and smoke detector are probably classic examples of the segment, which the report says is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent.

That’s nearly as fast as the explosion in wireless audio devices, which is driven by the ubiquity of smartphones.

However, with regard to smartphone growth, the report seems to be at odds with an earlier report by IDC, which pegs smartphone CAGR between now and 2019 at just over 8 percent. Future Market Insights, meanwhile, appears to be far more bullish, with a 20 percent CAGR over the next five years.

In any case, the smart home device segment is growing a lot faster than the global consumer electronics market as a whole, which is projected to see a CAGR of around 15 percent up to 2020.

As with wireless audio devices, smartphones are the supporting factor driving the global consumer electronics market forward. Last year, they accounted for a quarter of all revenue in the space.

Asia Pacific and the U.S. claimed 40 percent market share last year, but expect that to skew towards APAC — it’s projected to see much faster growth over the coming five years than the U.S.

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It’s also worth noting that India is predicted to pass the U.S. to become the world’s second-largest smartphone market behind China by 2017. And interestingly, Xiaomi, one of China’s top smartphone makers, is known to be pushing into smart home devices, including air and water purifiers.