Global smart water meter deployments overtake smart gas meters

In the recent Transforma Insights’ Forecast Insight Reports, ‘Gas Smart Meters: Government mandates, incentives and communication technologies drive adoption to over 450 million connections’ and ‘Water Smart Meters: 700 million connections by 2030 to solve issues related to water scarcity and loss’, we tracked and forecast the number of water and gas smart meters. We found that the number of gas smart meters shipment grew strongly during the late 2010s, but during the coming years it will be outstripped by the expansion in water smart meters. This blog post looks at the reasons why.

Growth Trajectory of gas and water smart meters

According to the Transforma Insights IoT Forecast Database, global annual shipments in 2021 were comparable, with gas seeing 36.4 million and water 37.5 million. However, over the next ten years we expect the installation of smart water meters to rapidly overtake those for smart gas meters. The total number of annual shipments for Gas Smart Meters was 45 million in 2022, and this will fall to 41.5 million in 2032. This compares to figures for Water Smart Meters of 57.5 million in 2022, increasing to 65.3 million in 2032.

Incidentally, smart electricity meters, which we also forecast at Transforma Insights, dwarfs both of these markets, with shipments of 145 million, 175 million and 174 million respectively in 2021, 2022 and 2032. 69% of all utility meters deployed today are electricity.

Major Drivers for water and gas smart meters

Water smart meters are deployed to monitor and diagnose domestic, commercial, and industrial water consumption patterns for customer information, billing and for diagnosing problems. Similarly, gas smart meters are used to monitor the distribution of piped natural gas (PNG) to monitor consumption, including with feedback to customers, and provide pressure measurement and leak detection. Both are used for the purposes of removing the requirement for manual meter readings.

In recent years there have been some significant drivers for water meters shipments exceeding those of gas meters.

Finishing rollouts of gas smart meters in developed countries

One of the primary reasons for the greater number of shipments of water smart meters is that the rollouts of gas smart meters are almost finished in developed countries. On the other hand, developing countries are deploying water smart meters in earnest. Of utilities, water is more widely adopted than gas. Households in developing countries generally don’t have the option of piped natural gas. Since metering growth is gradually shifting towards emerging markets, it’s inevitable that it’s mostly about water, which will further drive the adoption of water smart meters.

The issue of sustainability

The year 2022 witnessed several major droughts across the world, which increased discussions around water stress. The World Wildlife Fund revealed that two-thirds of the world’s population may face water shortages by 2025. These discussions has increased the focus on managing water resources more effectively.

Energy independence

The pressing issue of energy independence is rapidly gaining prominence around the world, and it has become clear now that the usage of natural gas will need to be heavily monitored. It is well-anticipated now that there will be a gradual shift from the use of gas for heating, which will negatively impact the market for gas smart meters.

Join us for a webinar on 25th May

If you are interested in the growth of the global IoT market and the opportunity over the next 10 years, join the team from Transforma Insights for our webinar ‘Are We Nearly There Yet?: Annual Update On Transforma Insights’ IoT Market Forecasts’ to hear about which applications and verticals will dominate in future, which technologies will be used, which countries will see the biggest growth and what is the revenue opportunity.