Smart Meters Market Size & Outlook, 2025-2033

Smart Meters Market Overview

The global smart meters market size was estimated at USD 35.13 billion in 2025 and is anticipated to grow from USD 39.58 billion in 2026 till USD 105.43 billion by 2034, growing at a CAGR of 13% from 2026-2034. Growth is driven by large-scale utility smart-meter rollouts and grid modernization programs, supported by decarbonization, DER integration, and regulatory mandates, with two-way AMI communications enabling efficient billing, outage detection, and energy management.

Key Market Trends & Insights

• North America held a dominant share of the global market with a market share of 34% in 2025, owing to High AMI penetration in the U.S. and Canada.
• The Asia Pacific region is growing at the fastest pace, with a CAGR of 14.2%, due to rapid volume demand and accelerating urbanization.
• Based on utility type, electricity smart meters dominate the market in 2025.
• Based on end user, the residential sector led by market share in 2025.
• The U.S. dominates the smart meter market in 2025.

Market Overview

• 2025 Market Size: USD 39.58 billion
• 2034 Projected Market Size: USD 105.43 billion
• CAGR (2026-2034): 13%
• Dominating Region: North America
• Fastest-Growing Region: Asia Pacific

The global smart meters industry is expanding rapidly as utilities upgrade legacy meters to advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) to support electrification, renewable integration, and distribution system flexibility. Regulatory mandates and national rollouts (e.g., Japan’s near-complete rollout targets, India’s large-scale targets), growing DER penetration (solar, EVs), which requires real-time visibility, and falling hardware and connectivity costs enabling mass deployments.

Latest Market Trends

Shift toward cellular and LPWAN (NB-IoT, LTE-M)

Smart meter communication is shifting from proprietary RF mesh networks toward cellular IoT technologies like NB-IoT and LTE-M. These options reduce upfront infrastructure costs, offer better coverage in rural areas, and provide managed services with service-level agreements (SLAs).

• For example, Japan's government, through the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), mandates the installation of smart meters in all households and businesses, with a target of 80 million by March 2025, to promote energy efficiency and support the liberalized electricity market.

This trend supports multiple services like electricity, gas, and water, all on a single network, lowering barriers for smaller utilities. The transition to cellular enhances scalability and accelerates deployment timelines globally.

DER growth in solar and EVs and the need for distribution visibility

The rapid increase in rooftop solar installations and the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is driving demand for smart meters. Utilities require granular, near-real-time data to manage grid challenges like voltage fluctuations, load balancing, and demand response. Smart meters provide critical insights that allow utilities to analyze hosting capacity and implement dynamic tariffs. As electrification accelerates, smart meters become a core enabler of modern, resilient, and efficient energy systems.

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Market Drivers

Convergence of metering, analytics and customer platforms

The smart meter market is moving toward integrated systems that combine metering, edge analytics, and customer engagement. Instead of meters serving only for data collection, new models can detect events like tampering or reverse power flow, process data locally, and integrate with meter data management systems (MDMS). Vendors are delivering platforms that merge connectivity, analytics, and operational systems.

• For example, in January 2025, Cisco and Gridspertise signed an MoU to collaborate on developing and deploying new solutions for digital innovation in electricity grids.

The shift changes procurement priorities, with utilities preferring full-service providers offering end-to-end solutions, supporting market growth.

Regulatory mandates and national rollout programmes

Government policies and national targets remain the strongest drivers of smart meter adoption. Countries like Japan have mandated near-total deployment by 2025, while India’s Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) aims to install hundreds of millions of meters across diverse utilities. These large-scale initiatives create multi-year procurement pipelines and encourage local manufacturing through public–private partnerships. Regulations also push interoperability and cybersecurity standards, ensuring systems work seamlessly and securely. Such mandates not only accelerate adoption but also provide financial stability, giving vendors confidence to scale manufacturing and services.

Market Restraint

Integration complexity and legacy IT systems

Smart meter deployment often struggles with integrating into existing IT and operational technology (OT) stacks, such as billing systems, outage management, and SCADA platforms. Many utilities still use outdated customer information systems (CIS) or meter data management systems (MDMS) that cannot easily handle high-frequency or complex datasets. Integration projects often require costly upgrades and consulting services, delaying returns on investment. These integration hurdles increase project risk and expenses, slowing down adoption despite the clear benefits of smart meter technology.

Market Opportunity

Smart water and gas convergence in multi-utility metering

The integrated deployments across electricity, gas, and water services present a significant opportunity for the market. Vendors are increasingly offering bundled solutions with unified communication networks and shared data management platforms. This approach reduces costs, simplifies vendor management, and creates cross-selling opportunities.

• For example, several European cities adopted combined smart metering contracts in 2024-25, using cellular IoT for municipal-level deployments across multiple services.

Large utilities also prefer integrated solutions to avoid fragmented projects. Vendors capable of delivering full-suite multi-utility offerings are well-positioned to secure large-scale contracts, as urban infrastructure planning moves toward holistic, smart-city frameworks.

Regional Analysis

North America leads the global smart meter market, holding a market share of 34% in 2025. This is because of its early adoption of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). By 2022, more than 119 million smart meters were already in use in the U.S., covering nearly three-quarters of electricity customers. Smart meters are preferred as utilities save money on meter reading, detect outages faster, and reduce electricity theft. Regulators and public utility commissions often allow utilities to recover the cost of AMI through rate adjustments, making large-scale projects financially viable. Federal and state programs, such as U.S. Department of Energy initiatives, also support smart grid modernization.

Asia Pacific's Market Trends

Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing region for smart meters, exhibiting a CAGR of 14.2%. Large national programs and strong government support drive the growth. India’s Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) is one of the largest efforts, aiming to install hundreds of millions of meters to reduce power losses and improve billing. Other countries in the region are scaling up deployments due to urbanization, high electricity losses, and the need to serve millions of dispersed customers efficiently. The area benefits from strong local manufacturing, which lowers costs, and widespread mobile network availability for connectivity. Government-led procurement and large-scale financing make Asia-Pacific the main growth driver for the global smart meter market.

Country Analysis

United States

The U.S. has one of the world’s most advanced smart meter markets, with over 119 million devices in operation by 2022. This represents about 72% of all electricity meters, showing a mature stage of adoption. The main drivers are operational savings, theft prevention, and faster outage detection. Utilities also benefit from regulatory support, as state-level public utility commissions allow cost recovery for AMI investments. Federal policies, such as U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funding for grid modernization, further encourage adoption.

Canada

Canada is a significant adopter of smart meters, particularly in provinces like Ontario, which achieved large-scale rollouts earlier than most regions. Government policies promoting energy efficiency, demand-side management, and carbon reduction support the adoption of smart metering systems across the country. Smart meters are key to enabling time-of-use (TOU) tariffs in Canada, which encourage households to shift electricity consumption to off-peak hours. Utilities are also using smart meters to improve billing accuracy, reduce manual reading costs, and detect power outages more quickly.

Japan

Japan is one of the most advanced markets globally, with a near-complete smart meter rollout by 2025. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and other utilities led nationwide installations, ensuring nearly all households and businesses are equipped with smart meters. Smart meters allow time-of-use pricing, faster outage detection, and better integration of renewable energy. They also enable data-driven consumer engagement and support electric vehicle charging management. This positions the country as a role model for smart meter adoption in Asia-Pacific, combining high penetration with a clear strategy for long-term value creation from meter data.

China

China represents the largest smart meter market in the world in terms of volume. Its growth is driven by national initiatives to modernize the grid and reduce losses, aligned with policies like “Made in China 2025.” State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), the world’s largest utility, has led massive rollouts, installing hundreds of millions of smart meters in both urban and rural areas. China’s push for electric vehicles and distributed solar also increases demand for more advanced metering solutions.

India

India is one of the fastest-growing markets for smart meters, and it is supported by strong government backing. The Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) targets the installation of over 250 million smart meters, making it one of the largest national programs worldwide. The main drivers are reducing aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses, improving billing efficiency, and enabling prepaid billing models. The growth of electrification, urbanization, and renewable energy integration further strengthens the case for smart meters.

Utility Type Insights

Electricity smart meters for residential customers represent the largest segment of the global market. This is because these meters are produced in high numbers, are easier to standardize, and offer clear benefits for utilities. Residential electricity meters help utilities prevent theft, reduce manual meter-reading costs, and introduce new billing methods like time-of-use pricing. The shift toward household electrification, through heat pumps, rooftop solar, and electric vehicles, is increasing the need for more advanced residential smart meters.

Communication Technology Insights

Cellular IoT (NB-IoT and LTE-M) is the leading communication choice for new smart meter projects. They allow utilities to quickly connect millions of meters using existing mobile networks instead of building private systems. This lowers upfront costs and speeds up deployment. Telecom operators provide managed services, SIM cards, and roaming support, which make it easier for utilities to scale their projects. Countries with national programs increasingly select cellular IoT because it ensures reliable performance, reduces integration difficulties, and supports future features like firmware updates and outage notifications.

Component Insights

Head-End Systems and Meter Data Management Systems dominate the component segment because they turn raw meter readings into useful information. These platforms check and clean data, combine interval readings, and connect with billing and outage management systems. As smart meter networks expand, utilities need these systems to handle large volumes of data and support new services like real-time monitoring and distributed energy resource integration. Regulatory agencies also encourage utilities to use advanced data management systems to maximize the value of smart meter investments.

End User Insights

The residential sector is the largest user of smart meters because households make up most of the global meter population. Utilities gain immediate benefits from installing meters in homes, such as reducing electricity theft, automating billing, and enabling demand response programs. Governments also target the residential sector in their modernization programs because of its large scale and visibility. Residential smart meters are also central to customer-facing services like energy efficiency apps and dynamic pricing, which strengthens their lead.

Competitive Landscape

The global smart meter market is highly consolidated with major players like Itron, Landis+Gyr, and Honeywell. These companies compete on both hardware and advanced software solutions, with a strong focus on grid-edge intelligence, data analytics, and managed services. The market is also seeing increased competition from regional and specialized vendors, particularly in rapidly growing markets like India and China, which are driven by large-scale, government-mandated rollouts.

Itron, Inc.: An Emerging Player

Itron combines its meters with intelligent firmware, data platforms, and service offerings. It focuses on selling at scale to utilities and supports global standards (such as DLMS/COSEM) to improve interoperability. The company also works with telecom operators to provide communication solutions and emphasizes software standards to make integration easier.

Latest news:

• In March 2025, Itron and CHINT Global announced the industry’s first smart meter based on the DLMS Generic Companion Profile (GCP) standard, demonstrating interoperability advances that aid large multi-vendor rollouts.

List of key players in Smart Meters Market

1. Landis+Gyr
2. Itron
3. Sagemcom
4. Kamstrup
5. EDMI
6. Aclara
7. Sensus (Xylem)
8. Honeywell
9. Siemens
10. Schneider Electric
11. Elster (now part of the Honeywell portfolio)
12. Iskraemeco
13. ZIV
14. Holley (Hengyang)
15. Wasion
16. Secure Meters
17. Osaki Electric
18. CHINT Global

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Recent Developments

• January 2025 - Sagemcom announced a certified firmware update for its SMGW Siconia SMARTY IQ series, compliant with German BSI technical guidelines and Common Criteria. This supports German utilities’ need for BSI-certified secure gateways.
• March 2025 - Itron and CHINT Global announced the industry’s first smart meter using DLMS GCP, a standardized profile intended to simplify interoperability across vendors. Standardised meter profiles reduce integration risk for utilities and make multi-vendor deployments more tractable, which is important for large national programmes and second-wave replacements.
• May 2025 - Landis+Gyr published FY 2024 financial results, demonstrated ultrasonic gas metering, and announced contracts (e.g., remote reading service agreements).