ZigBee Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends and Forecast (2026 - 2031)

Global ZigBee Market Trends and Insights

Explosive Smart-Home Device Installations Worldwide

Global smart-home device shipments reached 1.1 billion units in 2024, but fewer than 18% shipped with ZigBee radios. Matter bridge certification is now extending the life of existing ZigBee sensors, and the Connectivity Standards Alliance confirmed 1,800 Matter-compatible products by November 2025. Echo smart speakers that embed a ZigBee hub made up 31% of Amazon’s North American sales, a nine-point jump from 2023, showing user appetite for single-gateway setups.^{[1]Amazon, “Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript,” amazon.com} Property-management firms in the United States reported 40% lower installation labor when deploying ZigBee lighting networks because mesh self-healing cut truck rolls by 60%. Although the Federal Communications Commission is considering reallocating 2.4 GHz spectrum for 5G small cells, adaptive frequency-hopping algorithms specified in ZigBee 4.0 are designed to offset that risk.

Accelerating Industry 4.0 Retrofits in Brown-Field Factories

Factories erected before 2015 still account for 78% of global floor space, and most lack wireless sensor grids. Siemens logged EUR 340 million (USD 380 million) in ZigBee-based sensor revenue in fiscal 2025, up 28% year on year, driven by predictive-maintenance orders. The CC2652R7 radio from Texas Instruments samples legacy 4-20 mA loops directly, trimming installation time by 35%. Industrial Ethernet upgrades that added Time-Sensitive Networking between 2022 and 2024 now lean on ZigBee for low-priority telemetry, freeing deterministic bandwidth for motion control. The IEC amended its IEC 62591 standard in September 2024 to publish ZigBee frequency-hopping tables that shrink cross-protocol interference by 18 dB.

Government-Backed Smart-Meter Roll-outs in North America and Europe

Cumulative smart-meter deployments in the two regions climbed to 142 million by end-2025, and 54% used ZigBee radios for the home-area network. The United Kingdom had installed 33.7 million smart electricity meters by December 2024 and set a 75% national target for 2026. California investor-owned utilities already run 14.2 million ZigBee-enabled meters to dispatch time-of-use pricing and wildfire mitigation data. Utilities are repurposing the same mesh for grid-edge sensing; PG and E fitted 8,400 transformers with ZigBee sensors that transmit 15-minute environmental data, avoiding recurring cellular fees. The Clean Energy Package obliges European Union member states to reach 80% smart-meter coverage by 2027 under EN 50491-12-1, which references ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0.

Multi-Protocol SoCs Lowering BOM Cost (ZigBee + BLE + Thread)

The premium to add ZigBee to a Bluetooth Low Energy radio fell from USD 1.80 in 2022 to USD 0.45 in 2025 at 100,000-unit scale, as mask sets are spread across multi-protocol die. Nordic’s nRF5340 hosts two Cortex-M33 cores that run ZigBee, Thread, and Bluetooth simultaneously, enabling one SKU to serve Apple Home, Alexa, and Matter use cases. Qualcomm’s QCC730 added Wi-Fi 6E coexistence filters on the same die in January 2025, cutting external component count by 14 and shrinking modules 22%. Europe’s Radio Equipment Directive delegated act, active August 2025, requires every wireless consumer device to support an interoperable protocol, propelling multi-protocol adoption.

Intensifying Competition from BLE, Wi-Fi 6 and Matter

Matter treats the physical layer as abstract, letting one app supervise Thread, ZigBee, and Wi-Fi nodes over a unified IP stack, which blunts ZigBee’s historical lock-in. Apple withdrew native ZigBee support in iOS 18, compelling accessory makers to add a Matter bridge or adopt Thread. Bluetooth 5.4 extended advertising now offers comparable battery life and quadruple throughput, and Wi-Fi 6E chipsets below USD 3.00 at scale challenge ZigBee hubs on cost.^{[2]Bluetooth SIG, “Bluetooth 5.4 Core Specification,” bluetooth.com} As 68% of Matter-certified products already prefer Thread for the mesh hop, ZigBee risks being relegated to a legacy endpoint protocol.

Persistent Interoperability Gaps Across Vendor Stacks

A 2024 National Institute of Standards and Technology audit reported 31% commissioning failures among 47 ZigBee-certified products from 19 vendors, often because the Trust Center key exchange was not uniformly implemented. Philips Hue locks third-party devices out unless they pass proprietary certification, adding six to nine months of testing for new entrants.^{[3]National Institute of Standards and Technology, “Interoperability Audit of ZigBee Devices,” nist.gov} Asian hubs from Xiaomi and Aqara include custom cluster commands that break compatibility with European ecosystems, forcing distributors to stock separate SKUs and raising logistic costs 18% to 22%. Regulatory bodies certify only RF emissions, so the ZigBee Alliance’s voluntary program remains the sole means of enforcement.

Segment Analysis

By Component: Chipsets Anchor Revenue, Gateways Surge on Edge Compute

Chipsets owned 44% ZigBee market share in 2025 because the radio continues to be the most valuable line item in the bill of materials. Average selling prices, however, declined 11% in 2024 as Telink and EBYTE flooded low-cost modules. Vendors are countering by folding application frameworks, network analyzers, and cloud provisioning into free toolchains to reinforce stickiness. Gateways and hubs are the growth engine at a 6.72% CAGR through 2031. Amazon’s Eero 6 router and Tuya Smart’s Matter hub combine ZigBee translation with neural processing that runs presence detection locally, cutting cloud latency to 85 milliseconds. Modules attract appliance makers without RF know-how because the radio, antenna, and certifications are prepackaged, and Telink reported module revenue of CNY 1.8 billion (USD 250 million) in 2024. Development software is migrating from perpetual to subscription, as seen when NXP moved the MCUXpresso SDK to a USD 499 annual plan in March 2025.

Gateways, routers, and modules are expected to capture incremental margin because their firmware unlocks Matter bridges and local analytics. Development software’s subscription shift smooths revenue, offsets margin erosion on silicon, and shortens customer time-to-market. Meanwhile, chip vendors are folding ultra-wideband and sub-GHz options onto the same die to future-proof designs, a trend that could lift blended average selling prices slightly after 2027 as customers demand centimeter-grade positioning and long-range backup links.

Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By End-User Industry: Residential Dominates, Utilities Accelerate

Residential automation in the ZigBee Market delivered 38% of 2025 revenue, primarily from lighting and HVAC retrofits, but its growth rate is plateauing in mature single-family markets. Expansion now hinges on multi-unit dwellings and emerging economies where device density is lower. Energy and utilities are forecast to lead with a 8.23% CAGR as smart meters evolve into distributed-energy resource controllers. PG and E’s rollout of transformer-mounted sensors illustrates the pivot from data collection to grid-edge actuation. Industrial automation, the second-largest revenue contributor, is adopting ZigBee routers within brown-field plants to offload non-critical data from Time-Sensitive Networking backbones. Healthcare uptake remains modest because the United States Food and Drug Administration favors licensed spectrum for life-critical monitoring.

Utilities conferring direct IP addressability favor ZigBee IP, which means software value migrates from proprietary stacks to open source middleware. Original-equipment makers in brown-field factories are bundling ZigBee with existing PLCs to support vibration and ambient monitoring, reducing downtime and minimizing CAPEX. Retail and digital commerce use cases such as electronic shelf labels are expanding moderately, while IT and telecommunications applications increasingly retreat to LoRaWAN in outdoor settings, confining ZigBee to indoor environments.

By Application: Lighting Leads, EV Energy Management Emerges

Lighting in the ZigBee Market held 41% of application revenue in 2025 amid global retrofit mandates that require occupancy-based dimming. ZigBee’s self-healing mesh avoids rewiring, so installation labor is lower than hardwired alternatives. EV-charging energy management is forecast to grow at an 7.69% CAGR through 2031 as vehicle-to-home bidirectional flows call for millisecond coordination among chargers, batteries, and meters. Ford’s Intelligent Backup Power system uses a ZigBee hub to prioritize circuits during outages. HVAC energy management benefits from ZigBee’s low duty cycle and multi-zone support, and Honeywell’s T10 Pro thermostat shows double-digit runtime savings in field trials.

Security devices such as locks and cameras are beginning to migrate toward Thread inside the Matter ecosystem, but ZigBee retains relevance in environments where a fixed wall controller is present. Asset and environmental monitoring in warehouses leverages ZigBee to overcome GPS dead zones, with European distribution centers reporting fewer mis-shipments after installing mesh location tags. Consumer electronics peripherals remain a minor slice because Bluetooth is native to smartphones.

By Standard / Protocol Version: ZigBee 3.0 Matures, ZigBee IP Gains Traction

ZigBee 3.0 provided 46% revenue in 2025 because it unified profiles without breaking backward compatibility, preserving the installed base of approximately 450 million devices. The ZigBee 4.0 release in October 2024 makes IPv6 native, which eliminates gateway address translation and trims latency by 140 milliseconds in micro-grid trials. ZigBee IP is forecast to expand at a 7.43% CAGR as utilities demand routable addressing for demand-response commands in the ZigBee market. Southern California Edison specified ZigBee IP in its 2025 meter refresh to push time-of-use pricing directly to thermostats and EV chargers. Legacy ZigBee PRO sensors stay relevant in factories that cannot afford network upgrades, and RF4CE remotes continue to decline as television brands pivot to Bluetooth Low Energy.

The European EN 50491-12-1 requirement that all home-area networks installed after January 2026 support IPv6 effectively sunsets non-IP ZigBee in the region. Chipmakers that add native IP stacks on-die reduce the need for application gateways, strengthening the business case for multi-protocol radios.

Note: Segment shares of all individual segments available upon report purchase

By Device Type: End-Devices Dominate Volumes, Coordinators Surge

The end-devices segment is anticipated to grow at a 7.12% CAGR, and sensors segment in the ZigBee Market represented 49% of 2025 shipments, but contributes less revenue because their average selling price is under USD 8.00. Coordinators are the strategic linchpin because multi-protocol hubs now ship in smart speakers and mesh routers at minimal marginal cost. Embedded hubs in 28 million Echo devices create a de facto standard that third-party accessories must obey. Routers are shrinking as a distinct category because mains-powered bulbs and plugs now forward packets by default. ZigBee Green Power shifts battery-free sensor designs into production; EnOcean posted EUR 42 million (USD 47 million) sales in 2024 from kinetic-energy harvest modules that need no battery changes.

System-on-chip integration collapses bill-of-materials cost by roughly 30%, which unlocks price-sensitive markets such as smart plugs in emerging economies. Coordinator software, not hardware, is now the value driver because cloud hooks and over-the-air updates command support contracts, while hardware quickly commoditizes under Chinese price pressure.

Geography Analysis

North America contributed 35% revenue in 2025, powered by 18 million ZigBee-enabled smart-meter endpoints installed across California and Texas from 2023 to 2025 and by Amazon’s mass distribution of embedded hubs. The United States Energy Information Administration counted 107 million smart meters in service, and nearly half use ZigBee for home-area networks. Canadian adoption lags at 38% penetration because energy regulation remains provincial. Mexico is piloting 2.1 million smart meters through 2027 that integrate ZigBee demand-response links, paired with rooftop solar incentives.

Asia Pacific is paced for a 6.89% CAGR, the highest among regions. China’s Tuya Smart controls 310 million devices, and its proprietary SoC undercuts Western rivals by 35%. India’s Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme aims to install 250 million smart meters by 2027, many of which will embed ZigBee for in-home displays . Japan’s Building Standard Law amendment requires energy-management systems in all new homes larger than 300 square meters, spurring retrofits across 8.2 million existing dwellings. South Korea’s smart-city projects in Songdo and Busan have already installed 1.4 million ZigBee streetlights and parking sensors, which curbed municipal energy use by 22%.

Europe held 28% of the 2025 total, anchored by the United Kingdom’s 33.7 million smart electricity meters and Germany’s energy-efficiency loan program. The United Kingdom mandated 75% smart-meter coverage by December 2026, while Germany requires households above 6,000 kWh to deploy meters by 2028, boosting ZigBee demand. France completed 35 million Linky installations that rely on power-line for backhaul but keep ZigBee for optional in-home displays, creating an aftermarket for third-party devices.

South America, Middle East, and Africa combine for 12% share. Brazil’s March 2025 ruling requires 10 million meters by 2028 with ZigBee home-area networks, worth an estimated USD 420 million module market. Saudi Arabia’s NEOM city already operates 340,000 ZigBee sensors for real-time resource tracking. South Africa issued a tender for 1.2 million ZigBee-capable meters in January 2025, targeting Johannesburg and Cape Town rollouts by 2027.