Total professional monitoring revenue to exceed $15B in 2020

DALLAS—Research firm Parks Associates forecasts professional monitoring revenue for the U.S. residential security sector will total $15.74 billion in 2020, with smart home services accounting for $1.2 billion.

Parks’ “IoT: Extending Professional Monitoring for New Revenue” addresses how innovative companies are driving new revenue by extending professional monitoring services beyond residential security to new use cases in the connected home.

“The number of connected devices continues to expand year-over-year, and 2019 concluded on a particularly strong note for the security industry,” Brad Russell, research director, Connected Home, Parks Associates, said in the announcement. “Security system adoption reached one-third of all U.S. broadband households at the end of the year. Consumers now have an average of 11.4 connected devices in their homes, which opens multiple opportunities to extend monitoring services as well as different varieties of both professional monitoring and MIY (monitor-it-yourself).”

The firm noted the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic fallout create a more challenging landscape in 2020, specifically as consumers will look to reduce household spending. Parks Associates' surveys show consumers recognize and value the safety, security and economic benefits of monitoring services, so companies can build off of this recognized value, with the right marketing and pricing strategies.

“Central monitoring is a high-margin business, and many stations have excess monitoring capacity, driving the industry to expand its value proposition beyond the standard security offering,” Russell said. “As more aspects of daily life get connected, and as people spend more time in the home, new opportunities emerge that cross multiple industries, including energy usage monitoring; risk mitigation from flood and fire; monitoring the health and safety of aging relatives; tracking of valuables; and appliance maintenance monitoring.”

The new research profiles innovative central monitoring stations that drive the market; identifies consumer preferences and willingness to pay for monitoring services; and describes the value propositions for monitoring a variety of smart products within the connected home.