Smart Electricity Metering Industry, Global, 2024–2032

The Impact of Strategic Imperative 8 on the Global Smart Electricity Meter Industry

Transformative Mega Trends

• Smart meter rollouts will be a pivotal cornerstone for the development of smart grids and smart cities. Energy efficiency and smart buildings will be direct priorities for creating business opportunities.
• Smart grid infrastructure will have a significant influence on the future of energy management and will connect directly with smart buildings across smart meters.
• Leading metering companies are working alongside system integrators to facilitate a comprehensive grid solution portfolio ranging from load management to billing.

Disruptive Technologies

• Digital transformation and smart technology will become critical areas, as utility companies transform their businesses to draw closer to the customer and integrate within the smart grid environment.
• Smart metering data, complemented with AI-powered analytics, will enhance the forecasts of energy demand and renewable energy, optimising grid management, or enhance network monitoring.

Competitive Intensity

Major manufacturers acquire regional and global brands to remain competitive and offer solutions spanning across products, solutions, and services. This is leading to further consolidation within the industry to gain a competitive advantage with a march towards competitive distributed opportunities and capitalising on Mega Trends (smart cities and Internet of Things (IoT) opportunities).

When

• The future smart grid will be a combination of digital intelligent energy solutions accommodating centralised and decentralised solutions.
• Renewable energy deployment is experiencing accelerated growth. In 2024, global investment in power generation reached a record high of $961.45 billion, 12.3% growth from 2023. The renewable energy sector led this investment surge, with solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy accounting for 61.3% of the increase.
• Emerging and developing countries will require smart infrastructure and services to accelerate incubation time.

Scope of Analysis

Forecast Segments

• Unit: This refers to smart meter units supplied for pilot projects and government-mandated deployments or rollouts in residences. This includes automated meter reading (AMR) units and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) units.
• Smart Meter Revenue: This is the unit shipment for meters and the accompanying communications module multiplied by the average cost of the meter. It does not include head-end system, MDM, installation and network communications.
• Communications: The communications modules forecast include RF Mesh, powerline, 4G/NB-IoT/LTE Cat-M, Sigfox/LoRa, 2G/3G Cellular and other. Details of these technologies are provided in the report.

Regional Segments*

• North America
• Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific
• ASEAN member states
• China and Hong Kong
• East Asia
• Europe
• India and South Asia
• Latin America
• Middle East and North Africa
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Growth Drivers

• Supportive government legislation and regulations drive rollouts in key geographic markets. Utilities are driven towards smart meter installation when mandated for replacement of residential and non-domestic non-smart meters. Slow pace of smart meter implementation seen when the business case is not always strong enough. Smart meter rollout is not predictably a DSO’s choice, but is more of a regulatory agenda.
• High levels of non-technical losses provide a business case for electricity utilities to invest in smart metering also including prepayment. Smart meters play a significant role in the detection of unauthorized consumption and electricity theft, thereby protecting a utility’s revenues, which acts as a powerful business case. Utilities see benefits in smart meter installation in areas where their distribution network’s losses are high.
• Smart meters are the key bedrock component and pivotal for utilities and grid operators to establish—a future smart grid. Use cases to involve high end analytics for grid Intelligence. They establish a link between customers’ electricity consumption and the grid through real-time data that can be accessed behind and front of the meter applications. Smart meters being used as platforms for distributed analytics, network management, decision-making, and for device communications at the grid edge.
• Smart metering facilitates the integration of renewable decentralised energy production, storage, and usage (such as solar, wind, biogas, and EVs) by tracking the detailed inflow and outflow of electricity in the system. It accounts for the surplus and unconsumed energy generated from solar and wind power that gets fed back to the grid, enabling consumers to take advantage of feed-in tariffs (FiTs). Smart meters result in continuous communication, due to which monitoring can be done on a real-time basis during peak and off-peak intervals by grid operators and consumers.

Growth Restraints

• Supply chain bottlenecks persist in the Smart Electricity Metering Industry due to ongoing global shortages of critical electronic components and semiconductors, with elevated inflation and new trade tariffs compounding delays in production and rollout timelines despite strong utility demand. Specialized semiconductor parts remain in constrained supply as manufacturers face competing demand from sectors like AI and automotive. Additionally, new tariffs and trade barriers in key markets like the US, China, India, and parts of Southeast Asia increase component costs and complicate sourcing strategies. At the same time, long lead times and tariff-related costs extend delivery schedules, particularly for smaller/newer meter manufacturers who lack stockpiles compared to larger incumbents. While utilities continue to prioritize smart meter rollouts for efficiency improvements and regulatory compliance, cumulative pressures from supply chain bottlenecks, rising costs, and geopolitical risks restrict the global pace and scale of deployments, especially for smaller or challenger companies.
• Lack of a supportive business case if there is no mandate for smart metering. With no mandate, the business case for smart metering can be difficult unless there are high levels of electricity theft. Smart meters and the supporting communications and data analytics infrastructure cost significantly more than conventional metering, with the overall cost reaching $200 per endpoint in developed countries.
• Uncertainty over the choice of technology and the approval process for technologies and standards. Slowed adoption of smart metering is due to major countries adopting a cautious approach to large-scale rollouts due to delays by regulators in approving technologies and standards. Concerns over security due to access to personalised data and customer backlash to smart meter implementation have also led to a waiting game for many utilities until the minimum standards are well laid out.
• Preference for basic metering. The pre-eminent challenge for smart metering remains the cost factor and the required investment that can be justified by the expected returns. The cost of a basic electricity meter can be as low as $12 to $15 in some markets. In countries where metering of electricity occurs only partially, installing basic meters is the quickest and easiest available solution. However, with the cost of smart metering projects declining significantly in many markets, the impact of restraint is expected to weaken during the forecast period.

Key Competitors

Key Competitors

Key Competitors

Competitive Environment