The Asia-Pacific is now home to 0.9 billion connected electricity meters and is set to hit one billion by 2027, according to IoT analyst firm Berg Insight.

The report analyses the development of smart metering technology in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand.

According to the study, the installed base of smart electricity meters in Asia-Pacific will see a CAGR of 6.8 per cent from 857.6 million units in 2024 to nearly 1.3 billion units in 2030. At this pace, the milestone of one billion installed devices will be reached in 2027.

The penetration rate of smart electricity meters in Asia-Pacific will at the same time grow from 61 per cent in 2024 to 82 per cent in 2030 while cumulative shipments from 2025 to 2030 will amount to a 924.7 million units.

East Asia, including China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, has led the adoption of smart metering technology in Asia-Pacific with ambitious nationwide rollouts, and today constitute the most mature smart metering market in the region, accounting for more than 90 per cent of the installed base in Asia-Pacific at the end of 2024. The rollouts of smart electricity meters in China and Japan are now complete.

The nationwide rollout in South Korea has suffered a number of delays and the national utility Kepco (home.kepco.co.kr) now aims to complete the rollout by the end of 2025.

Taiwan is the least mature market in east Asia and boasts an installed base of just 3.4 million smart meters.

In China and Japan, replacements of first-generation smart meters have already begun, particularly in China where the meter life-cycle is relatively short.

“Replacements of aging first-generation smart meters will be the most important driver for smart meter shipments in Asia-Pacific in the coming years and will account for well over half of cumulative shipment volumes during 2025 to 2030,” said Felix Linderum, market analyst at Berg Insight.

While east Asia constitutes the most mature smart metering market in Asia-Pacific, the fastest growing markets are all found in south and south-east Asia with a wave of smart metering projects now sweeping across the region.

The most significant growth is expected in India where a massive new governmental funding scheme was introduced in the early 2020s with the goal of achieving the installation of 250 million smart prepayment meters by 2026. While that target will not be met, the rollout has nonetheless gained considerable momentum in recent times.

“The allocation of funds has really started to flow and there are now experienced vendors in the market that have the capabilities to fulfil strict SLAs and deliver the necessary volumes,” said Linderum. “These are some of the factors that have contributed to an increase in the deployment rate which now stands at approximately 100,000 units per day.”

In neighbouring Bangladesh, large-scale smart electricity metering installations are also emerging in a similar push to install smart prepayment metering by the government.

“We’re also seeing positive developments in nascent smart metering markets such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, which combined constitute a potential market opportunity of around 140 million metering points,” said Linderum.

Along with India, these three markets will be the fastest growing smart metering markets in Asia-Pacific during 2024 to 2030 with annual shipment volumes forecasted to see a CAGR in the range of 30 to 80 per cent in all four countries. Singapore and Malaysia meanwhile stand out from its neighbours in south-east Asia with major smart metering implementations already underway, and almost completed in the case of Singapore.

Download the report brochure at media.berginsight.com/2025/10/24145357/bi-smapac7-ps.pdf.