Mobile network operators will benefit from an estimated $1.8 trillion revenue opportunity from Internet of Things (IoT) by 2026, according to GSMA.
Americas region will account for an estimated $534billion, or approximately a third of the total IoT revenue.
The early deployment of commercial Low Power Wide Area Networks in licensed spectrum will be the growth driver.
12 mobile operators have launched 15 commercial Mobile IoT services, including AT&T, Telstra and Verizon (LTE-M), as well as China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, M1, Turkcell, Verizon and Vodafone (NB-IoT).
The IoT research report did not mention about Indian telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Idea Cellular, Vodafone and BSNL.
“Many operators are already reaping the benefits of deploying Mobile IoT and we encourage others to act now to capitalise on this clear market opportunity and further accelerate the development of the Internet of Things,” said Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer of GSMA.
The new findings highlight that consumer demand for connected home ($441 billion), consumer electronics ($376 billion) and connected car technologies ($273 billion) represent the biggest revenue opportunities for IoT.
However, other areas such as connected energy look set to reach $128 billion by 2026 as a result of local governments and consumers seeking smarter ways to manage utilities. Similarly, revenues from connected cities are forecast to reach $78 billion by 2026.
Mobile operators are enhancing their licensed cellular networks with NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies which utilise globally agreed 3GPP standards to scale the IoT.
Mobile IoT networks are expected to have 862 million active connections by 2022 or 56 per cent of all LPWA connections.
These new mobile IoT networks are designed to support mass-market IoT applications across use cases, such as industrial asset tracking, safety monitoring, water and gas metering, smart grids, city parking, vending machines and city lighting, requiring solutions that are low cost, use low data rates, require long battery lives and can operate in remote locations.
