Global shipments of smart home devices fell 5.6 per cent for the first quarter of the year, a slump expected to last into 2024.

According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker, 186 million smart home devices were shipped during the first three months of 2023.

Smart speakers and networked video entertainment device saw the biggest drops, down 15.4 per cent and 7.8 per cent respectively, year-on-year.

IDC expects the overall market to decline by 1.8 per cent in 2023, citing weak consumer demand and economic volatility.

The market is, however, expected to return to growth in 2024, and surpass 1 billion shipments by 2027.

“While there have been pockets of growth, the market has largely stalled due to lack of meaningful upgrades between one generation of devices and the next,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers.

“Even the launch of the Matter standard has not been enough to spur demand despite offering some ease of use.”

“The worldwide smart home market is witnessing uneven growth as some regions fare better than others,” said Adam Wright, research manager, Smart Home and Office Devices at IDC.

“In more mature markets like the United States, high installed bases of devices coupled with issues of underutilisation, ongoing disruptions form supply chains, logistics issues, high inflation, and record high credit card debt have impacted the market’s growth in 2022 and the first part of 2023 and are expected to continue to put downward pressure on the market for the foreseeable future.”

Latin America and parts of Asia/Pacific are still in an early stage of growth, and will buoy the overall market.