Smart water meters are rapidly becoming integral to residential and industrial buildings. This is because these systems not only allow the users to track and monitor their water consumption but also help in checking the water expenses regularly. Moreover, these devices allow the users to check the readings on the building premises themselves. In addition to their ability to keep water expenses under control in residential settings, smart water meters also assist majorly in curbing the loss of revenue, mainly caused by the loss of water during its supply.
While the developed countries record water losses of nearly 20% of the total supplied water, the developing nations register losses of more than 50% of the supplied water. These huge losses cause a sharp decline in revenue generation, thereby negatively impacting the growth of the water-supplying companies. As a result, these companies are increasingly adopting smart water meters for tracking and identifying water leaks and spillages in the entire water delivery network. Furthermore, many governments, especially those of several European countries, are enacting various regulations to reduce the operational expenditure of water supply organizations.
One such major policy is the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which was recently implemented by the European Union (EU) to limit water organizations' revenue losses. The smart water meter industry in Wales and England is being driven by such water management policies. The development of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is another important factor fueling the sales of smart water meters. AMI provides improved two-way communication and rapid alerts regarding potential leaks, owing to which, it is becoming highly popular in the water utility sector.
Hence, with the growing utilization of smart water meters, the global smart water meter market will register huge expansion in the coming years. Fluidic oscillator meters, velocity meters, positive displacement meters, single-jet meters, multi-jet meters, and electromagnetic meters are the most widely used types of smart water meters across the globe. Out of these, the usage of the positive displacement meters was recorded to be significantly high during the last few years. However, in the future years, the popularity of electromagnetic meters will be higher throughout the globe.
In terms of application, the smart water meter market is divided into residential, industrial, and water utilities. Amongst these, the water utilities category had the highest revenue in the market in the past. The usage of smart water meters in the utility sector is also predicted to be very high shortly, on account of the rising requirement for the management of water delivery modes. Moreover, the government of various countries is implementing policies for encouraging the installation of these meters for enhancing the measurement framework and water supply levels.
Geographically, the North American smart water meter market was observed to be very prosperous in the years gone by, as per the studies of P&S Intelligence, a market research company based in India. However, that will change in the future, with Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Europe expected to observe large-scale utilization of smart water meters in the coming years. Apart from these regions, the sales of these meters will also shoot up in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region in the upcoming years.
Therefore, it can be said with surety that the demand for smart water meters will rise considerably throughout the world in the forthcoming years, mainly because of the increasing focus of organizations on reducing the water spillages occurring during water supply and the rising implementation of various water management and conservation policies in several countries around the world.
