Global machine-to-machine (M2M) connections will reach 250 million this year from 195 million in 2013, said telecom industry body GSMA.
A GSMA study said M2M, which growing at nearly 40 per cent per year (38 per cent CAGR) between 2010 and 2013, accounted for 2.8 percent of all global mobile connections at the end of 2013, double the 1.4 percent share recorded in 2010.
According to the study, around 428 mobile operators currently offer M2M services across 187 countries; this is equivalent to 40 per cent of the world’s mobile operators.
Telecom operators surveyed in the report are now undertaking real commercial M2M deployments, indicating that the market has moved from an early-stage to mass-market delivery phase. Many operators also commented that they are adapting their organizational structures and business models in order to serve a range of vertical industries with M2M solutions.
The report indicated that the automotive industry was one of the fastest-growing M2M markets. Indeed consumers can now benefit from in-car connectivity and services such as flexible usage based Pay-as-You-Drive (PAYD) insurance and real-time traffic management.
Jurgen Hase, vice president M2M Competence Center, Deutsche Telekom, said: “M2M is of significant strategic importance to our business with huge growth potential across a number of industry segments. We can already see the impact it is having on our everyday lives.”
Meanwhile, market research agency IDC expects the technology and services revenue from Internet of Things (IoT) to expand from $4.8 trillion in 2012 to $7.3 trillion by 2017 at an 8.8 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), with the greatest opportunity initially in the consumer, discrete manufacturing, and government vertical industries.
“M2M matters because it rearranges workflows to be more frictionless. Increasingly we at SingTel are focusing on solutions that create more value for our customers beyond connectivity,” said Zia Zaman, vice president, Emerging Businesses and Strategy, SingTel Group Enterprise.
The IoT/M2M market is growing quickly, but the development of this market will not be consistent across all vertical markets. Industries that already understand IoT will see the most immediate growth, such as industrial production/automotive, transportation, and energy/utilities. However, all verticals will reflect great opportunity.
“Our customers are becoming more sophisticated in their use of M2M technology and more aware of the opportunities it creates,” said Jari Salminen, M2M business development at Vodafone.
Meanwhile, GSMA will unveil the Connected City at Mobile World Congress 2014. GSMA’s partners including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, KT, Vodafone, etc. are supporting the Connected City project. The City will also feature solutions from Accenture, Ericsson, General Motors, IBM, Huawei, Samsung and Synchronoss Technologies amongst many others.
