LONDON, UK — With the smart home market set to become a US$11.2-billion opportunity by 2022, communication service providers need to accelerate their strategies beyond their traditional offerings to take back ownership of the home or risk being relegated as marginal players.
That was the advice offered by London, UK-based market research firm ABI Research, in a news release highlighting the findings of a recent report that examined telco opportunities in the smart home market.
“CSPs are being threatened in a market increasingly driven by the likes of Google and Amazon with a range of products and services from AI-powered smart home voice-control smart speakers to security solutions,” said Pablo Tomasi, senior analyst at ABI Research, in the news release.
“But things are changing and CSPs are accelerating their strategies for the smart home. Telefonica with Aura, Orange with Djingo, and SK Telecom with Nugu lead the way of CSPs developing AI assistants to support their smart home play. Now is the time for CSPs to be more aggressive in tying the usage of their AI assistants to their other connected and smart home offerings,” Tomasi said.
ABI Research refers to activities that go beyond a communication service provider’s traditional offerings as “UnTelco” opportunities. According to its UnTelco in Smart Home: Telco Opportunities and Market Activities Report, the UnTelco opportunities for CSPs in the smart home will reach US$11.2 billion by 2022.
To win the smart home, CSPs must take a platform approach, supported by the creation of a wide partner ecosystem and underpinned by a monetization approach favouring freemium services over traditional bundles, ABI Research advised.
With all of the assets they have around the connected home — from providing connectivity, creating content and delivering video, to specific applications such as monitored security — CSPs have a wider reach than any other competitor, ABI Research said. CSPs should leverage this mix of services to tailor a strategy fine-tuned to customers’ needs — and not impose their legacy fixed-line business model on the smart home, Tomasi added.
“The smart home is core to the CSPs’ future and it is a real test to assess how far CSPs have developed their business beyond their telco heritage and how they can adapt their bundling business to market conditions, experiment with innovation, and compete head-to-head with webscale players,” Tomasi said.
To access ABI Research’s UnTelco in Smart Home: Telco Opportunities and Market Activities Report, click here.
