Research Note: The North American PERS (Personal Emergency Response Systems) service market is forecast to grow from $700 million in 2014 to $1.5 billion in 2019. The main market drivers are a growing elderly population and the increased use of mPERS, according to a recently published report from IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS).

PERS using traditional telephone lines remains the largest segment of the market.

However, as the United States begins to move away from POTS-based communication in the home, home phones will be replaced by either voice over internet protocol (VoIP) or cellular phones; limiting the number of potential in-home fixed customers.

Furthermore, mPERS is predicted to attract younger users, meaning users are unlikely to transfer to a fixed product if they are already familiar with the more flexible mPERS products.

Other Key findings of the report include:

• Value-added services will offer considerable revenue growth. This is because additional services, including fall detection and medicine reminders, can increase a user’s monthly spend by 25–30%.

• IHS predicts that in the next 12–18 months, activity monitoring will be included as an mPERS value-added service. These products will provide general metrics including the number of steps taken and calories burned. This will be a by-product of the fall-detection function, which already records the user’s activity throughout the day.