The global digital home leadership positions of Sony, Panasonic and Samsung are likely to come under significant threat from both Apple and Cisco, according to the latest report from Strategy Analytics’ connected home devices service.

“Cisco’s appearance as a future competitor in the digital home may surprise some observers. But the firm has identified consumer markets as a strategic priority, is now executing on the early phases of this strategy, and has the resources to secure a leading market position over the coming years,” said David Mercer, vice president and principal analyst of Strategy Analytics.

According to a recent report by the company, Apple and Panasonic have made the greatest strides over the past two years. But it also finds that the global recession will force today’s market leaders to make painful adjustments that could stall their future expansion activities.

According to the “connected home leaderboard”, Apple has demonstrated the greatest improvement over the past two years. But the report also concludes that Apple must address the “big screen” challenge before long, and that a successful connected TV strategy will be critical to the company’s ability to challenge for overall market leadership.

“Sony, Panasonic and Samsung retain their leadership positions by virtue of their global brand strength and strong consumer market understanding. By contrast PC vendors such as HP and Dell fall behind on metrics such as portfolio, channel distribution and consumer marketing,” claimed Peter King, director of connected home devices research.

The “connected home leaderboard” assesses the competitive and technology positioning of the world’s leading mobile, PC and consumer electronics companies which are targeting the connected home as a major growth opportunity, and determines their prospects for future revenue growth. Companies analysed include Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, Intel, LGE, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba.

Tags: Apple, Cisco, Sony, Panasonic