Americas will represent a third of total revenue, GSMA says
Mobile network operators globally will benefit from an estimated $1.8 trillion internet of things (IoT) revenue opportunity by 2026 boosted by the early deployment of commercial Low Power Wide Area Networks in licensed spectrum, the GSMA reported, citing figures from Machina Research.
To date, 12 mobile operators have launched 15 commercial mobile internet of things services, including AT&T, Telstra and Verizon (LTE-M), as well as China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, LG Uplus, M1, Turkcell and Vodafone (NB-IoT)
The research also indicates that the Americas region will account for an estimated $534billion, or approximately a third of the total revenue.
“There is a real sense of momentum behind mobile IoT networks in licensed spectrum, with multiple commercial launches around the world, as well as the availability of hundreds of different applications and solutions, but there is still much to be done,” said Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer, GSMA. “Many operators are already reaping the benefits of deploying mobile IoT and we encourage others to act now to capitalize on this clear market opportunity and further accelerate the development of the internet of things.”
The report highlight that consumer demand for connected home ($441 billion), consumer electronics ($376 billion) and connected car technologies ($273 billion) represent the biggest revenue opportunities. Meanwhile, revenues from connected cities are forecast to reach $78 billion by 2026.
The GSMA also highlighted that mobile networks are expected to have 862 million active connections by 2022 or 56% of all LPWA connections. These new networks are designed to support applications across a wide variety of use cases, such as industrial asset tracking, safety monitoring, water and gas metering, smart grids, city parking, vending machines and city lighting.
