Amongst the focus areas of the report, the smart citizen services segment is predicted to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. In smart cities, technologies such as video surveillance, DNA phenotyping, and real-time license plate and facial recognition are widely used for public safety, thereby indicating the need for surveillance to ensure citizen safety. Public safety not only includes improved crime fighting, but also provides safer conditions for first responders. Among safe city technologies, drones are heavily in demand; for instance, the Los Angeles Fire Department has used drones for the first time to precisely track the path of the Skirball fire for keeping firefighters safe, assessing damages, and combating wildfires.

As far as solutions are concerned, analysts expect that the connected vehicle segment is expected to grow rapidly moving towards 2023. Connected vehicles (also termed as vehicle telematics) is defined as the use of telecommunications and informatics across vehicles, such as passenger cars, buses, Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs), and Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicles (M&HCVs). The vehicle telematics solution enables communication and data transfer over long distances through wireless mediums. This transfer has resulted in the growing demand for the solution among citizens. The solution leverages the benefits of the embedded technology, and mobile and telematics systems and offers control over vehicles on the move.

In terms of geographical regions, it is the Asia Pacific (APAC) area that is expected to account for the largest market size during the forecast period. 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 systems. Moreover, a large number of small players are 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.

In the smart cities market, according to the research, the key and emerging market players include Cisco Systems, IBM, Siemens, Schneider, Ericsson, Vodafone, Itron Inc, Verizon, Telensa , ABB, Honeywell, SAP SE, Kapsch Group, and AGT International.