The number of new smart home installations worldwide was 0.44 million in 2010, according to a new research report by Berg Insight.

This number is expected to reach 5.38 million by 2015, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 65 percent.

The total revenues will grow at a CAGR of 32.8 percent from $2.3 billion in 2010 to $9.5 billion in 2015.

“Things are changing for this industry due to a perfect confluence of market, regulatory, strategic and technology trends,” said Alan Varghese, lead analyst, Berg Insight, in a statement.

“First is the pull from consumers in the mobile age, who desire to use products such as iPhones and iPads to control their lifestyles through user-friendly interfaces,” Varghese added.

The regulatory drivers that are pushing smart homes include governments. Thanks to timely regulation, countries and utilities are mandated to better control the generation, distribution and consumption of power in residences. The strategic push also comes from broadband providers who want to increase ARPU.

The technology piece is coming together with increasing focus on interoperability, even as the cost of modules, chipsets, and software is trending down.

According to Berg Insight, there is a shift in smart home technology adoption from custom and luxury residences to mainstream and production homes. Only 0.1 percent of mainstream homes had any form of automation in 2010, while almost 4 percent will have that by 2015.

Since new housing construction is in a slump, vendors are focusing their attention on retrofit of existing housing stock, and easy-to-deploy technologies such as wireless.

The market will be crowded with dealer-installers from industries such as security service providers, as well as new entrants such as broadband, wireless and utilities service providers.

According to a new study from ON (News - Alert) World, a provider of business intelligence on smart technology markets, the smart meter market increased 250 percent over the past two years and is set to triple over the next decade.