Report: Commercial building automation market to top $43 billion

After years of steady, but low, growth the commercial building automation systems (BAS) market is experiencing a rapid period of change and investment, confirms a new report from ABI Research.

The report posits that traditionally, growth and adoption in the market has been closely tied to new building completion -- but that new entrants and new connectivity are driving greater investment. Over the next five years, ABI expects the building automation services market will grow to $43 billion by 2018, up from $35 billion this year.

Two key factors are driving a new round of growth, says the report. Greater environmental and financial demands have raised the appeal of reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings and the benefits for optimizing building automation systems. In addition, a new level of connectivity that stretches the reach of BAS’s from new sensors and actuators through to cloud application management and data analysis.

“This is a market long dominated by a handful of major players who deploy and manage commercial building management systems,” points out Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI Research. “Now these players are developing new ways to integrate and compete with a host of new service offerings.”

Dominant players Siemens, Johnson Controls, Honeywell and Schneider Electric are increasingly seeing demand for their BAS systems connected to third-party player software, as building owners gradually look to gain savings and offer additional level of control within their properties. Within the BAS market, the report speculates software and services will see the greatest revenue growth, while hardware will lag as the pricing of actuators and switches fall.

The findings are part of ABI's Home Automation Research service. More information can be found here.