Kyocera looks to provide nationwide IoT services by 2020.
Japanese firm Kyocera Corporation announced its subsidiary Kyocera Communication Systems has started providing internet of things network services based on French firm Sigfox’s IoT network.
Kyocera said the service is available in Tokyo, Kawasaki City, Yokohama City and Osaka City, with plans to expand the offering to Japan’s 36 major cities by early 2018 and nationwide by 2020. Kyocera said it’s targeting annual sales of 10 billion yen ($90 million) by 2021.
Th partnership marks the first availability of the Sigfox network in Japan, which is the third largest IoT market in the world behind the U.S. and China.
The Sigfox network is set to offer remote monitoring services targeting utilities; retailers; environmental monitoring; the logistics and transportation market; asset tracking; health care; and agricultural markets. The offering is also set to support a smart parking system in Tokyo offered by OPTEX.
Sigfox’s network is present in 31 countries, and is on track to be available in 60 countries covering more than 486 million people by 2018.