According to IDC, European smart home shipments total "almost" 23.8 million units in Q3 2019, an increase of 18.1% Y-o-Y. One of the fastest growing categories is smart speakers, as numbers are up by 36.6% Y-o-Y to 4.5m units.
Smart speakers make 19% of total shipments for the quarter, still behind the biggest category, video entertainment. Such products make 58.2% of the market, with shipments reaching 13.8m units. Amazon is the biggest smart home vendor in Europe on Q3 2019, thanks to both smart speakers and the Fire TV digital media adapter range, especially in the UK and Germany.
"In Q3 2019, the CEE smart home market grew 51% year over year, with smart speakers the fastest growing category and Google and Amazon the leading vendors," IDC adds. "The lighting category recorded a solid growth thanks to affordable devices with direct connectivity options, not having the necessity of connecting to a hub. It is the simple way for consumers try the basic smart device."
Moving on to the next 5 years, the analyst forecasts European smart home shipments will reach 185.9m units by 2023 at a CAGR of 14.5%. Video entertainment is already a mature category, but the segment should see some novelties. For instance 2019 saw entry of both Fire OS and Roku as smart TV operating systems in the UK, and one expect them to appear in new countries with new partners. Meanwhile smart TV demand is set to increase in CEE, as some countries turn off the DVB-T standard signal, leading customers to make new TV purchases.