Pandemic drives smart appliance and consumer robotics market revenues to $80 billion in 2021

Consumer robotics and smart appliance vendors will continue to benefit from the boost in consumer spending on home technology in 2021, building on the uplift that started in the second half of 2020.

Global tech market advisory firm ABI Research calculates that the consumer robotics and smart appliance market will generate $80 billion in revenues in 2021, up 40 percent on 2020 revenues.

Growth comes as two dynamics combine, says the analyst.

Jonathan Collins, smart home research director at ABI Research, says: “The uplift in consumer investment in their home environments that started in the second half of last year continues.

“Aging appliances are being replaced and crucially upgraded as the value of improving the home environment remains high.

“At the same time, appliance manufacturers are seeing increasing value in adding communications into their product lines and that embedded capability is reaching further into their product portfolios and not just in the highest tier products.

“It is the combination of increased consumer awareness, greater product availability and better price points that will see strong growth continue throughout the decade.”

The maturing consumer robotics market is increasingly a key category within the smart appliance space. ABI Research has extended and combined its research coverage of both market segments to emphasize the commonality of the two markets, as well as their growing integration into the smart home market.

Collins says: “In the maturing robotics space, we see leading appliance vendors including Bosch, Siemens, Samsung and Haier increasingly invested in both the robotics and the smart home space.”

Growing demand for smart appliances and consumer robotics comes as a level of standardization has come to smart home. “Vendors across the most prevalent smart home devices will be able to leverage the Matter smart home specification to open single products across the largest smart home ecosystems.

Collins adds: “Although appliances and robotics remain beyond the first specification, initiatives such as Home Connect are bringing cross-vendor interoperability and smart home control to these markets.”