Berg Insight forecasts that the installed base of water AMI endpoints in Europe and North America will nearly double between 2025 and 2031. The figures point to a shift from mobile meter reading toward fixed-network water metering architectures. For water utilities, the metering question is increasingly less about whether a meter can communicate and more about how often, through which network, and with what operational consequences. Drive-by and walk-by readings can digitize billing, but they do not provide the same infrastructure for continuous monitoring, leakage detection or near-real-time operational data. That distinction is central to new market data from Berg Insight, which estimates that Europe and North America had a combined 79.1 million water AMI endpoints installed at the end of 2025. The research firm expects that figure to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.8 percent, reaching 154.5 million endpoints in 2031. The broader installed base of communicating utility water meters, including both AMI and AMR, is forecast to rise from 190.1 million units in 2025 to 249.2 million units in 2031. AMR refers to meters read through mobile operations such as drive-by or walk-by collection, while AMI relies on fixed network communications and supports a more IoT-oriented operating model. Why the AMI share matters The most revealing point in the forecast is not simply the headline growth figure. Based on Berg Insight’s numbers, AMI represented about 42 percent of communicating water meters across the two regions in 2025. By 2031, it would account for roughly 62 percent. That implies a structural shift in the installed base: utilities are not just adding connected meters, they are moving a larger share of the market toward fixed-network infrastructure. This is what makes the announcement distinct from a typical smart metering market update. It separates general meter communications from true