Concrete interest, concrete purchasing intentions

Smart home is booming - still on a relatively low, absolute revenue level but with huge growth rates. Consumer surveys suggest: the biggest growth is yet to come.
This is the conclusion drawn from the results of a European-wide survey carried out by the market research company Context, which is specialised in the collection of sales data in the IT/CE sector. In concrete terms this means that: The number of households in the European Union that use smart home applications will break through the ten million barrier in 2017 and the revenue will amount to more than two and a half billion Euros, according to the French Trade Association's estimation (Fédération Française de Domotique). It expects an increase of up to 30 mio households and six billion Euros in revenue by 2019.
Current figures from Context support this prognosis: in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and Ireland, the revenues have almost doubled (90 per cent) from the first quarter in 2016 to the first quarter in 2017 on the wholesale level (the trade talks about distribution) and amount to € 14 mio.
The consumer awareness for the topic of smart home has rocketed and Germany is way ahead of the field. Here such questions as: "Have you ever heard of smart home?" were answered with more than a 60 per cent "yes" this year - one year ago, it was 40 per cent. Slightly under this level but with still well over 50 per cent, were the survey results in the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden and France, whereas considerably fewer consumers, not even half, had a clue what this term meant in Italy and Spain.
However, the strong interest on this subject is on the rise everywhere. This year, in the UK, Italy, Spain and France, 50 per cent more consumers have shown an interest compared to 2016, even though none of them could reach the best value of 67 per cent held by Germany. Even when looking at core Europe, the figures don't look so bad. The EMEA awareness average of 40 per cent (some just and others clearly over this level) is also achieved by countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Turkey, Argentina and Chile.
Far more interesting for manufacturers and retailers is, however, the intention of the consumers to buy smart home devices in the foreseeable future. Whereas, currently not even four per cent of the people surveyed throughout Europe - with the exception of France and in particular, Germany - admit to having such a device, they are actually making smart plans for the future. This is…