Indian telecom service providers should explore new revenue streams by leveraging the IoT market in India, according to a research report on IoT by Frost & Sullivan.

The report is significant because three telecom operators such as Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Airtel have reported drop in their revenue during the June ended quarter of 2017.

ABI Research, which conducted a global survey, finds that 67 percent of manufacturing respondents do not have IoT solutions in operation. Of those, 74 percent are either investigating, assessing, or planning to deploy such solutions in the next 12 months.

Frost & Sullivan said the IoT market has the potential to reach $16.8 billion by 2021, following the implementation of IIoT and government smart city projects.

Indian telecom providers are trying to evolve as end-to-end solution providers while developing capabilities to provide post-sales support across the entire value chain.

“The top areas for IoT deployment in India are smart cities, connected healthcare, telematics and connected manufacturing or Industry 4.0,” said Omkar Malage, senior consulting analyst, Digital Transformation (ICT) Practice, Frost & Sullivan.

IoT growth strategies will evolve as telecom service providers enter new vertical markets, including healthcare, retail, manufacturing and fleet management, and create strategic partnerships with system integrators, IT service providers, and vertical-specific platform and app providers.

Cisco, Reliance Unlimit, Jasper, IBM, Tata Communications, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel are aggressive in the Indian IoT market.