Among the areas of focus within the report, it is the smart transportation segment that the researchers expect to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Transportation is a critical and essential part of any smart city project, as it is the main stake for fast and sustainable growth of an economy, allowing people to swiftly travel from one destination to another, alongside enabling goods and services to be effectively delivered. Smart transportation solutions provide an essential boost to the existing and new transport infrastructure projects considering several factors, such as the rapid increase in urban demographics and the growing environmental concerns. The transportation systems are designed and implemented for smart cities and combine cutting-edge technologies to provide platforms that deliver real-time online information about the traffic flow and passengers/commuters. These solutions also enable efficient monitoring and smooth running of public as well as freight traffic to and from cities, thereby reducing delays/lags and cutting down overhead costs, such as maintenance. They also allow better management of peak traffic conditions, as well as, predict and prepare for heavy and lean traffic periods.

Within the smart buildings focus area, the services segment is expected to grow rapidly as these allow building administrators to plan and implement smart building solutions with minimum effort. According to the report, smart building solutions implemented with the help of professional service providers can be very effective and efficient. The benefits of employing smart building services include the need for implementing optimal solutions, resulting in improved building performance, reduced energy, and reduced operational expenditure. The complex nature of various smart technologies deployed across cities and the need for custom solutions to implement smart city solutions in different cities are driving the demand for consulting and deployment and integration services.

In terms of regions, it is the Asia Pacific (APAC) area that is expected to account for the largest market size over the studied period and is therefore expected to be the main revenue contributor to the smart cities market. The growth in this region is expected to be driven by the increasing demand for smart cities solutions, such as connected vehicles, building energy optimisation, and distribution management system. Moreover, a large number of small players is catering to the APAC smart cities market, making it one of the fastest-growing regions. The deployment of smart cities solutions in different segments, such as smart transportation, smart buildings, smart utilities, and smart citizen services, is already on the rise in APAC.

The smart cities market includes many world stage players and the key and emerging market players in this sector cited by the analysts include household names such as Cisco, IBM, Siemens, Microsoft, Hitachi, Schneider, Huawei, Intel, NEC, GE, Fujitsu, Oracle, Ericsson, ABB, Honeywell, Google, AT&T, Nokia, Vodafone, Verizon, Accenture and Alibaba.