There will be around 13 billion new IoT connections by 2025, according to a new report from GSMA Intelligence, with smart buildings and smart homes accounting for the largest areas of growth.
As the world moves into the 5G era, “IoT will be an integral part” of that, the report concluded.
GSMA Intelligence expects the global number of IoT connections to more than double between this year and 2025, to nearly 25 billion. Revenues are anticipated to more than triple, to $1.1 trillion, contributing a new revenue stream to operators.
However, the report found, they will have plenty of competition to capture the new revenues as many verticals increase their digital operations and look to 5G and IoT connectivity to do so.
“Multiple groups, besides operators, are targeting enterprise digitization, including cloud and software-as-a-service companies and systems integrators,” the GSMA report found, citing the fact that a company such as Ford could look equally to Amazon or Verizon — or a combination of both — for solutions. “The challenge, therefore, will be to move the conversation about 5G away from technology and towards a consultative mentality of problem-solving,” the report added.
Other findings from the Mobile Economy report included:
-Smart manufacturing IoT connections are expected to grow fourfold from 2019 to 2025, largely driven by China.
-The business case for IoT is shifting, GMSA Intelligence said, “from just connecting devices to addressing specific problems or needs with solutions to collect, process and integrate data from multiple sources, which can then be analyzed to create value and provide actionable insight.”
-Enterprise IoT connections are expected to nearly triple between 2019 to 2025. They will surpass consumer IoT connections in 2024, and they will account for just over half of all IoT connections by 2025, GSMA Intelligence predicted.
See the full report from the GSMA.
