The smart metering growth story in Asia-Pacific continues

The smart electricity metering market in Asia-Pacific is inching ever closer to the historic milestone of 1 billion installed smart meter devices.

The latest research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight analyses the development of smart metering technology in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand. According to the study, the installed base of smart electricity meters in Asia-Pacific will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4 percent from 818.6 million units in 2023 to nearly 1.2 billion units in 2029. At this pace, the milestone of 1 billion installed devices will be reached in mid-2026. The penetration rate of smart electricity meters in Asia-Pacific will at the same time grow from 61 percent in 2023 to 80 percent in 2029 while cumulative shipments during 2024–2029 will amount to a total of 872.7 million units.

East Asia, including China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, has led the adoption of smart metering technology in Asia-Pacific with ambitious nationwide rollouts and today constitute the most mature smart metering market in the region, accounting for more than 90 percent of the installed base in Asia-Pacific at the end of 2023. The rollout of smart electricity meters in China is now complete while Japan is in the end-phase of its rollout. The nationwide rollout in South Korea has suffered a number of delays and the national utility KEPCO now aims to complete the rollout by the end of 2024. Taiwan is the least mature market in East Asia and boasts an installed base of just 2.8 million smart meters. In China and Japan, replacements of first-generation smart meters have already begun, particularly in China where the meter life-cycle is relatively short.

Mattias Carlsson, IoT Analyst at Berg Insight, said:

“Replacements of aging first-generation smart meters will be the most important driver for smart meter shipments in Asia-Pacific throughout the forecast period. The number of smart meters tendered by the State Grid of China is also expected to become more stable going forward at around 65–70 million units per year.”

While East Asia constitutes the most mature smart metering market in Asia-Pacific, the fastest growing markets are on the other hand all found in South and Southeast Asia with a wave of smart metering projects now sweeping across the region. The most significant growth is expected in India where a massive new governmental funding scheme was introduced in the early 2020s with the goal of achieving the installation of 250 million smart prepayment meters.

“India is already reaping the benefits from the modernisation of its electricity grid and has in the last two years managed to reduce overall aggregate and technical losses significantly”, continued Mr. Carlsson.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, large-scale smart electricity metering installations are also emerging in a similar push to install smart prepayment metering by the government.

“We also observe positive developments in markets such as Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan – particularly the latter two. The Taiwanese smart metering market is showing stable growth, with a state-owned utility that has a track record of meeting set targets. Indonesia still constitutes a nascent smart metering market, but is also a huge market opportunity with a growing economy and impressive electricity user base of almost 86 million”, concluded Mr. Carlsson.

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