The Indian smart home devices market continues to show an impressive growth on the back of evolving technology consumption habits amongst the consumers and variety of affordable data connectivity options available in India. As per IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker, Indian smart home devices market which consists of connected lights, smart speakers, connected thermostats, smart TVs, home monitoring/security products, digital media adapters, amongst other connected devices for homes, saw a healthy year over year growth of 107 per cent to reach at 1.4 million shipments in Q2 2018.

Video entertainment category which includes smart TVs, streaming sticks and set-top boxes grew 81 per cent year over year, and the category continues to dominate with 85 per cent unit share within the portfolio of various smart home products. Xiaomi, which debuted in the smart TV market in the first quarter of 2018, tripled its shipments in Q2 2018 and became the leading brand in this category. While, Amazon remains the clear leader in the streaming stick category, with almost 8 out of 10 streaming devices sold in the country being Amazon Firestick.

“The Indian video entertainment market is seeing an upgrade to connected media devices and larger screen viewing experience. To drive the growth, companies are upgrading their product portfolios with smart SKUs, relooking at the pricing, and adding new channels to sell their devices says Jaipal Singh, Associate Research Manager, Client Devices, IDC India.

He further adds “OTT content players like Netflix, Amazon, Hotstar, Sony Liv and a host of other streaming services are spending aggressively on marketing and local content availability to hook new customers in an attempt of luring them away from incumbent DTH and TV Cable services. Many of these platforms are also partnering with telcos and broadband providers to get the existing data users onboard by offering free bundled subscriptions. These sustained efforts combined with maturing Indian audience is driving the increased demand for smart as well as devices with new form factors”

Smart speakers, a three-quarters young category in India is also seeing healthy traction, with a 43 per cent sequential growth in Q2 2018. Amazon with its Echo range of smart speakers leads this category with 59 per cent market share, closely followed by Google for the 2nd position. To give a further boost, Google and Amazon are providing special offers on online platforms, spending substantially on marketing to create mass awareness, and are adding partners on board to make the smart speakers as one of the most sought-after and novel devices for the Indian households.

“Although, the initial usage of smart speakers are currently limited to few use cases, as the smart homes market is at a very nascent stage in India, we are seeing signs of it growing beyond entertainment,” said Navkendar Singh, Associate Research Director, IDC India. “Vendors are making efforts for building an ecosystem around the smart speakers, so as to provide superior consumer and connected home experience. As this category continues to gain traction, users are getting acquainted with the voice assistants and opting for it as a single platform to control all their smart home devices needs”.

In the commercial segment, a few verticals are playing a critical role in driving the consumer awareness today by introducing them to these smart devices. They are getting familiar to control appliances and completing tasks on a voice assistant for the first time. These new initiatives are going to smoothen the adoption cycle for the smart speakers in India” ends Singh.

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