Arlington, Va. — A Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) study found that almost all installations of home technologies in new homes increased or held constant in 2013, indicating the built-in home technology market has a strong, stable foothold in the U.S.
CEA’s “12th Annual State of the Builder Technology Market Study” indicates installations of almost every home technology increased or held constant from 2012 to 2013.
Structured wiring was the most common technology installed in 2013 (78 percent, an 8 percent increase from 2012), followed by monitored security (47 percent, up 3 percent) and home theaters (32 percent, up 5 percent). Multiroom audio (21 percent), energy management (13 percent) and home automation (12 percent) all saw increases. A new addition to this year’s study are stand-alone video surveillance systems (including pre-wire), which were installed in 8 percent of new homes in 2013.
The U.S. housing market continued to recover in 2013, and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) predicts there will be 1.3 million new home starts in 2014. In parallel with the housing recovery, built-in home technologies are expected to reach $2.3 billion in revenue in 2014, according to CEA’s “U.S. Consumer Electronics Sales and Forecast” report.
“The market for built-in home technologies and the housing market in general are well on the road to recovery,” said Chris Ely, industry analysis senior manager, CEA. “Several home technologies have made the transition from luxuries to standard options in the marketplace, indicating that technology remains crucial to new home construction, even as the tide of do-it-yourself solutions rises.”
In 2013, almost all (93 percent) of new homes were equipped with broadband cable, an increase of 37 percent from 2007. With greater broadband access, penetration of other home technology features such as home offices (51 percent) have grown as a result, increasing by 13 percent since 2007.
Additionally, three in five builders (63 percent) said home technologies are more important to their overall marketing efforts than they were two years ago, further indicating growing consumer demand. Among builders, the importance of marketing home technologies is highest for townhomes (95 percent) and luxury homes (94 percent).
The “12th Annual State of the Builder Technology Market Study” was designed and formulated by CEA Market Research. CEA employed the services of the Home Innovation Research Labs (formerly the NAHB Research Center) to survey 1,000 U.S. homebuilders. The report is available free to CEA member companies at members.CE.org. Non-members may purchase the report in the CEA Store.
